I blogged the other day about a USDOL travel time Opinion Letter for the construction industry and foremen in that industry. The employer seeking the advice posed three scenarios and wanted answers about the foremen and the laborers that also ride in the trucks. In this installment, I look at the issue of compensable time
USDOL Seeks To Kick Out Private Lawsuit Asserting It Can Do Better For Employees: Can It?
Are two lawsuits better than one? Not for the employer, I can tell you that. A very interesting case is working its way through the federal courts now, where the US Department of Labor wants to take over a private lawsuit that has been filed alleging Fair Labor Standards Act violations. The government is contending
New USDOL Independent Contractor Rule Helps Putative Employers
The Trump Administration has tried to help business and employers in many ways, including loosening USDOL rules (and views) over many things. One topic of special interest on this front has been on the independent contractor issue. The USDOL has taken another step now in that direction, by proposing a new rule on the classification
More USDOL Guidance On Virus Working Time Issues: Tracking Off-the-Clock Time
I have written several times about employees working from home, e.g. telecommuting, and how employers must carefully keep track of their hours to avoid unauthorized overtime. There are situations, however, that arise regarding unanticipated work and how employers should track and pay for this. The USDOL has now assisted in this endeavor, as it issued
Pre-Payment Plans: A Novel Way to Deal With Overtime Issues
The FLSA contains a number of provisions that enable employers to manage, if not reduce, overtime costs. One of these is called a pre-payment plan. Under a Pre-Payment Plan, an employer pays anticipated overtime in advance in order to maintain the employee’s wage or salary level constant from pay period to pay period. Excess payments
Payroll Audit Independent Determination Program Is a Bust… for an Obvious Reason!
When the USDOL self-reporting program was announced, I was highly skeptical. Even though there seemed to be assurances that no undue enforcement actions would be taken, it just did not seem that employers would voluntarily subject themselves to such government review. Evidently, I was right. The USDOL has announced that this voluntary compliance program, the
USDOL Raking It in for Underpaid Employees: Is This the Promised Positive Change Towards Business?
There has been a lot of talk about how much more pro-business the U.S. Department of Labor was going to be under this Administration. Well, appearances can be deceiving, as a report has just come out indicating that the agency collected in excess of $322 million last year for workers who did not receive proper
The USDOL And The Joint Employer Doctrine: The Saga Continues
The USDOL has proposed a new cut-down (watered down?) test for determining when entities are a joint employer. Such a finding leads to the aggregating of employee hours which are worked at both places as well as rendering the entities jointly liable for wage-hour (e.g. overtime) violations.
The focus of the new proposal is a
New FLSA Exemption Salary Level Set at $35,000
We have been waiting for the United States Department of Labor to announce its plan for toning down the overtime rule revisions implemented in the last administration, but stayed by federal courts, and to announce its own proposal. Now, that momentous event has happened—the agency announced yesterday it will set the salary threshold at $35,308
Will New USDOL Compliance Office Help or Hurt Employers?—Time Will Tell
There is an old saying, “I’m from the government and I’m here to help you.” Everybody thinks that is funny as, often, the opposite is true, especially for the employer community. Well, the USDOL is putting a new spin on this maxim by creating an office to (supposedly) help employers in complying with the Fair