working time

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I have often said that the USDOL is a politically charged industry and its view on legal issues (much like the National Labor Relations Board) shifts with the Administration that is in power.  For example, under the prior administration, the agency took a pro-business stance and issued pro-business Opinion Letters on independent contractor and working…

The health care industry seems to be ground zero for a particular kind of class action lawsuit.  Many of these health care institutions have policies where a thirty-minute lunch period is automatically deducted from the daily scroll of hours.  This is quite understandable, from an operational perspective, as it usually is difficult for employees to…

I have defended many cases in which the employee(s) claim they worked through lunch and are owed wages (or, usually, overtime).  These cases are usually difficult to defend unless the employer either compels employees to punch out and in for lunch or has another kind of fail-safe mechanism to account for this time, if legitimately…

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 defended many claims and lawsuits involving working time, especially travel time.  Employees are continually seeking innovative ways to convert their otherwise non-compensable home-to-work travel into compensable work hours.  These efforts often fail, as illustrated by a recent case where Chicago police officers sought pay for transporting and storing their guns and then retrieving…

I continue to blog about working time cases because these are the kind of lawsuits that can sneak up on an employer who does not realize that a certain pre-shift activity may in fact constitute working time under the Fair Labor Standards Act.  This is again illustrated by a trucking company case where the Company…