Total Articles: 8
Overstaying Rest Breaks: Round Two
Our earlier post about the U.S. Labor Department's position on unauthorized extensions of rest breaks has generated additional comments and questions. We have responded to one comment at length beneath the post itself.
Automatic Time Deductions for Meal Breaks Can Be Very Costly
Automatic deductions, where the employer's time-keeping system assumes and deducts for a 30-minute meal break, have proved to be a fruitful target for plaintiffs.
When does the FLSA require pay for meal periods? [Wage & Hour FAQ]
Q. A company provides employees with a 30-minute unpaid lunch break. An employee, who is a smoker, has asked if she can take two 5-minute unpaid smoking breaks - one in the morning and one in the afternoon - and reduce her unpaid lunch break to 20 minutes. Is this allowed?
FLSA Lactation-Break Comments Urge Expansive Approach
The period has now closed for submitting information and comments relating to the U.S. Labor Department's "preliminary interpretations" of the 2010 federal Fair Labor Standards Act lactation-break amendment. We highlighted these preliminary interpretations in a December post. If DOL adopts even a portion of the positions put forth by many commenters, employers will be faced with yet another legal minefield.
Are Established Meal Periods Of Under 30 Minutes FLSA "Hours Worked"?
Our July 5 post prompted a question about whether an established meal period of less than 30 minutes must be considered worktime under the federal Fair Labor Standards Act. The answer is, "Not necessarily".
Beware the Meal Period Time-Bomb
An increasing number of federal Fair Labor Standards Act lawsuits and U.S. Labor Department investigations include claims based upon the employer's deducting meal periods from non-exempt employees' recorded worktimes. Typically, the employees did not clock out-and-in to reflect the mealtime they took. Instead, the employers automatically deducted the full, scheduled meal period from each employee's total daily hours on the assumption that the person took a full meal break each workday. An employee who worked during a meal could avoid the deduction by using an exception feature of the timekeeping system, but the usual allegation is that employees did so inconsistently or infrequently, if ever.
Kampai! Sushi Chefs Ruled Eligible for Tip Pool.
The hospitality industry has not escaped the nationwide wave of wage-hour lawsuits. A contentious area under the federal Fair Labor Standards Act has involved the practice of requiring tipped employees to contribute some of their tips to a pool that is split among other workers. The U.S. Labor Department recently addressed an important tip-pooling question: Under the FLSA's tip-credit standards, who may receive tips from such a pool?
New FMLA Regulations Leave Employers Scrambling to Comply.
After years of waiting, the U.S. Labor Department (DOL) has just published new regulations interpreting the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA). These are the first significant changes since 1994, and will impact every employer subject to the law. The 762 pages of regulations not only address two new forms of military leave created earlier this year, but also make minor tweaks, major adjustments and wholesale changes to sections of the original FMLA regulations.
