Articles Posted in Overtime

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Remember that f**king fire drill?

Back in 2016, the United States Department of Labor proposed a rule that would have made millions of workers eligible to earn overtime for the first time by raising the salary-level that exempts certain individuals from overtime eligibility under the Fair Labor Standards Act.

And employers panicked. Many businesses converted salaried employees to hourly. Others got raises. Some received both. It was a mess. The only happy people were the employment lawyers.

But, then a federal judge in Texas entered a nationwide injunction against the proposed DOL rule, and everything went away, except those raises and pay changes that you could exactly stuff back into the tube of toothpaste.

Welcome to Round Two

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For nearly ten years, from September 1, 1997 through July 23, 2007, the federal minimum wage was $5.15 per hour. Three times in the following two years, the minimum wage rose, settling in at $7.25 per hour on July 24, 2009. The minimum wage has remained $7.25 since then.

That might change soon. Continue reading

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By Mikamote [CC BY-SA 3.0], from Wikimedia Commons

Generally, if a wage and hour dispute arises in the workplace, the parties need approval from either the U.S. Department of Labor or a federal court to resolve claims under the Fair Labor Standards Act.

When parties agree to resolve these claims as part of litigation, two things often happen:

  1. A court must approve the settlement; and
  2. The settlement agreement becomes public; i.e., no confidentiality.

Recently, Trevor Tahiem Smith, Jr. and the other parties to an FLSA action requested that a New York federal court relax the publicity rules by creating a “celebrity exception.”

Oh, you don’t know Trevor Tahiem Smith, Jr.?

That’s Busta Rhymes!

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Last week, the U.S. Department of Labor did more for employers than just revamp its internship test.

It re-issued a slew of opinion letters to help employers with sticky wage-and-hour issues. I’ve highlighted a few of the more notable ones below.

[Fair warning: We get kinda wonky by the end] Continue reading

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If an employer violates the Fair Labor Standards Act, like by not paying overtime, the plaintiff(s) can generally recover two years of unpaid overtime for the two years preceding the lawsuit. Those plaintiffs may also recover liquidated damages equal to the unpaid overtime.

So, if an employer owes $100 in overtime, the total bill with liquidated damages would be $200.

However, if the employer willfully violates the FLSA, then the damages increase. That’s because the lookback period for a willful violation becomes three years.

But, what makes a violation willful? Yesterday, the Third Circuit helped answer that question. Continue reading

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A few years back, some progressive (?) restaurants around the country made headlines by paying their waitstaff more than minimum wage and putting the kibosh on customer tips.

This broke with the traditional way of paying customarily-tipped employees in scratch offs and iced animal crackers. That is, most employers would pay the minimum-required cash wage of $2.13 under the Fair Labor Standards Act (unless your state requires a higher minimum wage) and use customer tips as a credit against the $7.25/hr. minimum wage obligation to the employee. This is known as, you guessed it, the tip credit.  Continue reading

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