Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA)

Training Time—Compensable or Not?

the situation You have a new business that will require a number of employees with a particular skill set. You find a way to get a local community college to offer a free training course focused on this particular skill.  At the conclusion of the course, you open for business.  Can the employees make a […]

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Millions in Damages for Unpaid Bathroom Breaks?

the situation Your policy requires that each employee log in and out of his computer whenever taking any sort of break. Employees are then paid just for the time they are logged into their computers. Is this okay?

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Your Employees Agreed to Comply with the Employee Handbook—So Can’t You Hold Them to it?

the situation Your employee handbook requires that employees submit all employment issues to an internal dispute resolution process and then arbitration and provides that employees waive all rights to bring a lawsuit and to a jury trial. You provide a copy of the employee handbook to all employees and require that they sign a statement […]

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Travel to Break Area Makes Meal Break Compensable

Generally, employers feel pretty comfortable considering a thirty minute meal break non-compensable under the FLSA, as long as workers are not required to perform any work duties during that time. But what if the workers have to travel to get to where they can eat? Can that travel time end up making the meal break […]

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DOL casts wider net for misclassified independent contractors

The DOL is continuing in its initiative to address misclassification and make sure there are more employees and less independent contractors in the future. The Wage and Hour Division of the DOL issued Administrator’s Interpretation 2015-1: The Application of the Fair Labor Standards Act’s “Suffer or Permit” Standard in the Identification of Employees Who Are […]

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Big changes in overtime proposed

Earlier this week, the Department of Labor announced a proposed rule that will greatly expand overtime protections. One of the significant changes is that the white collar exemptions will no longer be applicable to a large group of salaried employees–those making less than $50,440 on an annual basis.

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But we didn’t tell him to work off the clock -do we still have to pay overtime?

Many employers have been faced with this situation. An employee who is classified as non-exempt and so entitled to overtime decides to do some work from his home computer at night—maybe to score some brownie points with a hard-to-please supervisor or maybe to make up for a failure to get enough done during the workday. […]

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The Second Circuit agrees–an oral complaint to a supervisor may support a retaliation complaint under the FLSA

Back in 2011, the Supreme Court ruled that an oral complaint can serve as the grounds for a retaliation claim under the FLSA. See Kasten v. Saint-Gobain Performance Plastics Corp., 131 S. Ct. 1325 (2011). But in Kasten, the oral complaint was made to a government agency and so the question still remained—what about an […]

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New guidance from DOL regarding workplace violence

Based on a continuing problem of violence in the workplace, the DOL has issued updated guidance related to this important topic. According to the press release announcing the issuance of the new guidelines, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that more than 23,000 significant injuries in 2013 occurred due to assaults in the workplace—and 70% […]

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If an employee underreports his time—and his employer knows about it—can the employer use that conduct to get around liability for unpaid overtime under the FLSA?

What if an employee does not keep accurate time records in violation of company policy? Is an employer able to shift the blame onto the employee for any resulting unpaid overtime? In a recent decision from the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals, the court found that if the employer knows that the employee is underreporting […]

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