Federal Wage & Hour Laws and Policy

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I have handled many cases involving the so-called commission exemption under the Fair Labor Standards Act, Section 207(i), and I can safely say that often a big stumbling block for the defendant (i.e. employer) is to show that it is in a “retail” industry. Absent that showing, the exemption will not apply, even if the…

We are seeing states start to re-open and businesses start to come back to life and bring their employees back. There are many difficult economic issues that surround these developments, not the least of which is the continuing need to comply with the Fair Labor Standards Act (and state wage and hour laws). These issues…

I have found a very interesting exemption case involving a rather unique job title that also is very instructive in the interpretation of the Highly Compensated Exemption (“HCE”) under the Part 541 FLSA exemption tests. The case involved an employee whose title was Organ Procurement Coordinator, who was seeking back due overtime, claiming he was…

The USDOL has been quite busy lately in issuing regulations and other guidance relating to the provisions in the Families First Coronavirus Response Act. With that said, the “regular” business of the agency continues as best as it can. One of these functions is the issuance of Opinion Letters which, as I have written about…

The Corona Virus scare is causing employers to lay people off and reduce their hours. For non-exempt, hourly people this is fairly easy, from a legal perspective, because if non-exempt people do not work, they do not get paid. The case is tougher for exempt workers. The FLSA requires employers to pay exempt employees at…

As you know, I am a big believer in and proponent of using USDOL Opinion Letters, both in advising clients, understanding the agency’s view, and, more importantly, urging them on courts as good authority for the premise I may be arguing.  Well, the fact that a federal court has just refused to accept the agency’s…

The USDOL has finalized its new rule concerning when two entities can be deemed a joint employer and therefore liable for each other’s wage violations.  Under the Obama administration, the DOL sought to expand the reach of this doctrine and issued a “white paper” asserting that indicated that businesses had to be completely “disassociated” to…

There have been a host of wage hour cases in the energy industry and I have often commented upon these.  Many concern misclassification issues and another example of this phenomenon has arisen where a class of pipeline inspectors has requested that a federal court approve a settlement amounting to more than $2,000,000 where the theory…

The New Jersey test for independent contractor status under the unemployment laws is already very tough, the very infamous, A-B-C standard.  That is seemingly not enough for this Administration and Commissioner Asaro-Angelo.  The Senate Labor Committee has just passed Senate Bill 4204 which will revise the last two prongs of this tri-partite test, making it…

It is fairly easy for a plaintiff to get conditional certification in a FLSA class action case, but that is not the end of the story.  The next step, much harder, is fending off the defendant’s anticipated motion to stop the class from receiving final certification.  It is even more difficult to withstand that defendant’s…