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Articles Posted in Wage and Hour

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FLSA Exemptions For Employers: Now 40% Less Daunting, 100% Still Your Problem

Last week, the Supreme Court clarified employers can show how certain employees don’t need to be paid overtime or minimum wage under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) Spoiler alert: it’s not as tough as some courts thought. Why Did This Case Happen? The case involved sales representatives for a…

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Must companies pay employees for time they spend lollygagging on the job?

In a recent precedential decision, the Third Circuit Court of Appeals addressed a critical issue for employers: whether they must compensate employees for the actual time spent on work-related activities, even if they are lollygagging. Or can an employer comply with the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) by paying employees…

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Join me and my friends on Wednesday, December 11 for HR Festivus. (And it’s free)

At Noon ET, Amy Epstein Gluck, Michael Elkins, and I will present “What the Legal Landscape Looks Like for 2025.” Come hang with us for an hour while we cover key legal updates for 2025. Our friends at HR Learns, who are hosting this event, have pre-approved our sesh for…

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Three lessons for employers from Lizzo’s employment litigation

Last year, several media outlets reported about a lawsuit that a clothing designer who worked for Lizzo and her touring company had asserted against them and another individual. That lawsuit included several claims under state law for discrimination, retaliation, and assault, among others. On paper, it didn’t sound good for…

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Can employers pay inflated expenses to employees and avoid counting them towards overtime?

Suppose you commonly reimburse employees for certain expenses like mileage, meals, or equipment. Suppose instead of paying them the usual rate of “x,” you decide to pay them significantly more, like maybe “4x” for those expenses. Can you do so and exclude those payments from the employee’s regular rate of…

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What should employers know about Lori Chavez-DeRemer, Trump’s pick to run the DOL?

Credit: Lori Chavez-DeRemer on Instagram If you had your money on President-Elect Trump selecting a pro-labor Republican with support from several unions to run the U.S. Department of Labor, you and I should go to Vegas together so I can ride your coattails. On Friday, President-elect Donald Trump tapped Oregon…

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Join us today at Noon ET on Zoom to learn how November’s election results may impact employment laws in 2025

In the wake of election results earlier this month that will result in a Republican president and a Republican-controlled Congress in 2025, it’s reasonable to expect some changes in employment law. I’ve assembled an all-star panel of employment lawyers to explore them, including my partners Amy Epstein Gluck and Dessi Day and two…

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Déjà vu all over again: a Texas federal judge erased the new OT rules nationwide

Wikipedia says that déjà vu is the phenomenon of feeling as though one has lived through the present situation before. Last Friday, a Texas federal judge vacated a U.S. Department of Labor 2024 Rule that raised the minimum salary level to be exempt from the Fair Labor Standards Act overtime…

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Your HR Guide to Hurricane Milton

As I write this post on Wednesday night, Hurricane Milton is making landfall in Florida as a category three storm. 1.3 million people are without power, and forecasters warn that Milton could generate a storm surge with inundations of 12-13 feet. Many of you with businesses in Florida will have…

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Court to feds: You can keep using salary to measure which workers should receive overtime

Emphasizing that the Department of Labor has used a minimum salary requirement to help decide who is overtime-eligible, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals recently determined that the Fair Labor Standards Act authorizes this benchmark. As it had done many times before, the DOL determined in 2019 to raise the minimum…