Did you have a nice Thanksgiving holiday?
How many of you gave thanks to that federal court in Texas for entering a nationwide injunction on the DOL overtime rules?
![By JustinForce (Own work inspired by Stop hand.svg:) [CC BY-SA 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0) or GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html)], via Wikimedia Commons](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/4/48/Shiny_stop_hand.svg/480px-Shiny_stop_hand.svg.png "By JustinForce (Own work inspired by Stop hand.svg:) [CC BY-SA 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0) or GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html)], via Wikimedia Commons")
In a massive stroke of irony, a federal judge — one appointed by President Barack Obama — entered a nationwide injunction Tuesday to stop the implementation of the U.S. Department of Labor Fair Labor Standards Act overtime rules that would have taken effect on December 1, 2016.
In March 2014, President Obama directed the Secretary of Labor to “modernize and streamline” the existing overtime regulations for executive, administrative, and professional employees” (read: create more overtime $$$ because raising the minimum wage wasn’t working).
Nearly three years later, the crown jewel of President Obama’s HR-compliance legacy is on ice and could be completely undone.
I’ll open this post with a haiku. Because, I feel like we could all use a haiku.
President-Elect
For HR, what will he do?
Not a stinkin’ clue!
If I had a quarter for every time I heard someone criticize me for acting aloof at Starbucks by ordering a “medium” rather than a “grande” use the term “salaried-exempt,” I could play air hockey all day at Chuck-E-Cheese.
Hmm, that sounded less creepy in my head. But, seeing it typed out and all, yeah, sorry.
Yep, if you need me this morning, I’ll be at Fort Sam Houston, giving my spiel to U.S. Army South and some folks from Guantanamo Bay on social media and the workplace. How cool is that!
(In a dorky lawyer kinda way).
While that’s going down, let me catch you up with some other recent HR-compliance nuggets:
A few weeks ago, I blogged here about a federal agency — one that rhymes with EEOB — reaching a 7-figure settlement with its workers of alleged Fair Labor Standards Act overtime violations involving comp time.
Last week, the Third Circuit Court of Appeals issued an opinion, in which it addressed another tricky situation involving overtime offsets.
The slow death of the 9-5 workday, together with the arrival of the new FLSA overtime rules, which do into effect on December 1, could create one of the bigger wage-and-hour pitfalls for employers in 2017 and beyond.
How was your Fourth of July weekend?
Did you knock your 5-year-old off of her scooter in the middle of Main Street to the shocked and judging, “Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhs….” of spectators on both sides of the street with smartphones up capturing all of the parade action for posterity?
***checks YouTube again***
Well, neither did I.
On December 1, 2016, the new Department of Labor overtime rules will take effect. Yesterday, Senate labor committee Chairman Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) and Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs committee chairman Ron Johnson (R-Wisc.) announced (here) new legislation under the Congressional Review Act to to stop the overtime rules dead in their tracks.
You ever see that scene in Minions where the caveman tries to stop a bear with a flyswatter?
Keep preparing for the new overtime rules.
The Employer Handbook Blog