Total Articles: 20
Worker Misclassification is Focus of Colorado-U.S. Labor Department Partnership
Demonstrating a heightened focus on worker misclassification, the Colorado Department of Labor and Employment has signed a memorandum of understanding with the U.S. Department of Labor’s Wage and Hour Division to reduce employers’ misclassification of employees as independent contractors. The Memorandum, according to the agencies, is designed to present a “unified front” on the issue.
Calculating Overtime for Salaried Employees [Wage & Hour FAQ]
Q. We have a number of non-exempt employees who are nevertheless paid a salary. How do we calculate overtime for these employees?
Fluctuating-Workweek Follies: First Principles Are Unchanged
The U.S. Labor Department's unfounded April fluctuating-workweek commentary (earlier post here) continues to complicate many pre-existing pay plans and to cause employers to narrow their views of the available compensation alternatives. This is the foreseeable (and apparently intended) result of what DOL said. Unfortunately, some observers are compounding the impact of DOL's commentary by suggesting that its ramifications are more dire than ought to be the case.
The Myth of "Unauthorized" Overtime
Has something like this ever happened in your organization? You have a solid non-exempt employee working hard on a project. His supervisor is out of town and unreachable. In the supervisor's absence, to get the job done, he works a few hours of overtime. When the supervisor gets back, he asks if she will approve the extra time he has already worked. The supervisor says yes, but adds that if the employee had asked ahead of time she probably would have told him not to work overtime on this particular project. The employee responds apologetically and says that he won't put in for the overtime pay.
Overtime Blues
Your handbook says, "No unauthorized overtime permitted." Your managers tell employees that they must get their job duties completed during regular work hours because there is a company-wide prohibition against working overtime. Your managers also tell employees to accurately record their hours worked. All good stuff, right? Could be.
What Is A "Workweek", And Why Should You Care?
Many compensation policies and similar documents refer to wages for non-exempt employees in the context of a "week", a "pay week", a "pay period", "the schedule", an "overtime week", or some other ambiguous word or phrase. But the timeframe that matters under the federal Fair Labor Standards Act is a term-of-art: A "workweek". For instance, with few exceptions, FLSA overtime pay is due for a non-exempt employee's hours worked over 40 in a single workweek, which is not necessarily the same thing as the calendar week or an employee's scheduled week or pay period.
DOL Seeks To Undermine Fluctuating-Workweek Plans
The U.S. Labor Department's April 5 Final Rule attempts to transform the principles of fluctuating-workweek pay plans in two ways. Remarkably, DOL apparently plans to do so, not by facing up to these matters by actually proposing a straightforward revision of the relevant interpretative provision at 29 C.F.R. § 778.114, but instead via remarks in the preamble accompanying the Final Rule.
Wage and Hour Developments Continue: Split on Hybrid Overtime Actions Deepens and Supreme Court Leaves Half-Time Overtime Compensation Untouched
As reported here, the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals recently held that plaintiffs could simultaneously proceed with state law wage claims brought as an opt-out class action under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 23 in the same case with an opt-in collective action filed under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA).
Quick Quiz: FLSA Overtime On Commissions.
The blogosphere is providing mixed signals about how to figure commission overtime under the federal Fair Labor Standards Act. There is particular discussion on this point where Mortgage Loan Officers are concerned, now that the U.S. Labor Department opined in March that the "typical" one is non-exempt. However, the FLSA overtime principles are the same for any commissioned employee who is subject to that law's overtime requirements.
Wage and Hour Update: Employers Per Diem Pay Scheme Violates Overtime Rules.
Overtime pay rules are deceptively simple. It isnt just enough to know to pay employees time and a half of the regular rate for hours over 40 in a week (or also, in California, over 8 in a day). Take the concept of the regular rate. The regular rate isnt always just the employees hourly rate of pay. Sometimes it can include other pay. For example, in a recent federal Fifth Circuit Court of Appeal case titled Gagnon v. United Technisource, Inc., an employer got burned in an overtime lawsuit for paying an improper per diem which should have been included in the employees regular rate.
No Cheap Deal For Family Dollar.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit (Alabama, Florida, Georgia) recently affirmed a $35 million award for store managers for Family Dollar Stores, agreeing with a lower court that the managers were non-exempt and therefore were entitled to overtime and liquidated damages under the Fair Labor Standards Act.
Appeals Court Affirms $35 Million Verdict in Overtime Case.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit (Alabama, Florida, Georgia) recently affirmed a $35 million award for store managers for Family Dollar Stores, agreeing with a lower court that the managers were non-exempt and therefore were entitled to overtime and liquidated damages under the Fair Labor Standards Act.
Calculating Overtime Pay Under the FLSA (pdf).
Here are the core rules for determining whether non-exempt
employees have in fact worked overtime and, if so, how
much overtime pay they are due.
Supreme Court FLSA Decision Relieves Domestic Service Industry: Deference to DOL Regs a Good Sign (pdf).
The companionship service exemption spares from
the FLSAs minimum wage and overtime provisions
employees who provide in-home companionship
services to elderly or infi rm persons unable to care for
themselves.
Ninth Circuit Finds Employees' Claims for Overtime Compensation Related to Time Spent Traveling to and From Work Meeting Sites are not Pre-Empted by the LMRA.
In Burnside v. Kiewit Pacific Corporation (June 20, 2007), the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeal held that claims brought by a class of unionized employees relating to compensation for time spent attending and traveling to and from company-mandated meetings were not pre-empted by Section 301 of the Labor Management Relations Act (LMRA), even though the issue was expressly addressed in the various pertinent collective bargaining agreements (CBAs). Accordingly, the Ninth Circuit remanded the action to state court.
Courts Approve Method for Calculating Overtime that Can Reduce Overtime Costs (pdf).
The FLSA normally requires employers to pay
nonexempt employees time and one-half their regular
rate of pay for all hours worked over 40 in a workweek.
Under the fl uctuating workweek method, however,
employers who meet certain requirements may pay
nonexempt employees a fi xed salary for all hours
worked and compensate them at one-half their
regular hourly rate for all hours worked over 40 in the
workweek. This can mean less overtime pay for the
employee and less overtime expense for the employer.
Self-Storage Managers' Overtime Claims Dismissed By Court (pdf).
The Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals recently rejected a lawsuit brought by two employees who claimed that they were denied overtime in violation of the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA).
According to the court, the employees were fully compensated under the terms of a reasonable employment agreement between the parties.
Are You Paying the Correct Amount of Overtime?
If asked, most employers will say that non-exempt employees must receive overtime for all hours worked over 40 in a workweek. Most employers also will say that the amount of overtime due is one- and-one-half times the employees hourly rate. But wait, is this second statement correct?
New Overtime Regulations Clear Final Hurdle (pdf).
On August 23, 2004, the long awaited "section 541" overtime
regulations finally became effective after avoiding last-ditch attempts in
Congress to scuttle them.
White-Collar Exemption Changes [PDF File, .1]
The United States Department of Labor (DOL) recently issued proposed changes to the regulations governing which employees are entitled to overtime.
