What I’m about to share with you today will never become a Hollywood blockbuster. Actually, it’s so dull that I would sell it over the counter as a holistic sleep aid if I could bottle it. Ambien’s got nothing on wage-and-hour minutiae. Early last year, after President Biden won the…
United States Department of Commerce and Labor, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons While not quite as outrageous as slavery, ignorance, or misogyny, today’s edition of “Don’t Do This” will apply most practically to readers of this blog. Yesterday, the U.S. Department of Labor officially withdrew its “Independent Contractor Rule.” The DOL had…
Tug of War by Creative Mania from the Noun Project Sam spent 60 hours working on a project for your company last week, for which the business paid Sam $1,000. The company treated Sam as an independent contractor. But, what if Sam was actually an employee instead? The problem with…
Image by Carlos Insignares from Pixabay Let’s say that some of your non-exempt employees choose to telework for part of the day and work at the office for part of the day, with enough time to perform personal tasks in between. Do you have to compensate them for the travel…
Nan Palmero from San Antonio, TX, USA, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons If you operate a restaurant or other establishment with tipped employees, the odds are that wage and hour laws have not been your top priority in 2020 — as opposed to, say, staying afloat. It’s been a…
Lantay77 at en.wikipedia, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons It’s getting hot in herrrrrrrrrrrrre! Well, tepid. It’s an employment law blog, after all. A strip club in Ohio employed two women for several months. Let’s call them, oh, I dunno, “plaintiffs.” During their time working for the club, the plaintiffs…
Image by Free-Photos from Pixabay Employee versus independent contractor, who cares? The U.S. Department of Labor, that’s who. (And that means you should too.) Misclassified employees may not receive minimum wage or overtime or family and medical leave. When that happens, the Wage and Hour Division (WHD) gets angry. And…
Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay Hopefully, you know by now that you should be tracking the time of non-exempt employees working remotely during this pandemic. If this is news to you, well… But, have you figured out an excellent way to track hours that an employee works, even though…
Image by Annalise Batista from Pixabay Yesterday morning, I received a press release from the U.S. Department of Labor. Five opinion letters The U.S. Department of Labor announced five new opinion letters that address compliance issues related to the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA): FLSA2020-6: Addresses whether salespeople who travel…
Image by Photo Mix from Pixabay Follow me. I’ll get you into the VIP area for a better view. Yesterday, Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) and Representative Ro Khanna (D-CA) called for the next coronavirus relief package to pass Congress to include what they term an “Essential Workers Bill of Rights.” …