Articles Posted in Overtime

Did this company retaliate or simply exercise its First Amendment right (to BLAST its employee on Facebook)?

May 24, 2024 | by Eric B. Meyer

“An employer’s free speech right to comment upon matters that affect the business is firmly established,” noted a Vermont federal judge earlier this month. “But when such commentary is a threat of retaliation … it is without the protection of the First Amendment.”

That’s fancy speak for employers can’t use social media to retaliate against employees, current or former. Continue reading

Various employer associations have sued to block the DOL’s new overtime rule

May 23, 2024 | by Eric B. Meyer

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Yesterday, several employer groups and associations filed a federal lawsuit in the same court that, in 2017, stymied the U.S. Department of Labor‘s efforts to change the overtime rules by raising the minimum salary level needed to be exempt from receiving overtime. As I’ll explain below, the 2024 plaintiffs have also raised the same arguments that worked seven years ago.

It’s déjà vu all over again. Continue reading

See you on Zoom today at Noon ET to address the FTC’s noncompete ban and the DOL’s OT changes

April 29, 2024 | by Eric B. Meyer

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You still have time to register (here) for The Employer Handbook Zoom Office Happy Hour, which returns today at Noon ET. My Pierson Ferdinand employment law partners, Ben Jacobs and Amy Epstein Gluck, will join me to discuss the FTC’s plan to ban most employee noncompetes and explore the Department of Labor’s proposed increase to the salary level for overtime exemptions.

See you soon!

Let’s have another Zoom on Monday, 4/29/24, at Noon ET to address the FTC’s noncompete ban and the DOL’s OT changes

April 25, 2024 | by Eric B. Meyer

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What a week! Continue reading

The Thirty-Two Hour Workweek Act, introduced this week in Congress, is exactly what you think it is

March 15, 2024 | by Eric B. Meyer

The same week that the U.S. Department of Labor’s rules on analyzing and determining who is an employee or independent contractor under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) took effect, both houses of Congress introduced legislation to shorten the workweek. Continue reading

Should Mrs. Doubtfire have been paid overtime?

February 29, 2024 | by Eric B. Meyer

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It’s not like I woke up in a cold sweat, fixated on this obscure bit of Fair Labor Standards Act minutiae.

But I did read this Eleventh Circuit decision last night, which did posit whether “Julie Andrews’s Mary Poppins, Martin Lawrence’s Big Momma, Fran Drescher’s Nanny Fine, Robin Williams’s Mrs. Doubtfire, or Vin Diesel’s Shane Wolfe…would have been entitled to overtime pay in the real world.”

So, let’s find out. Continue reading

Today’s free “wage and hour 101” post is the silver lining to an employer’s $1.6M screw-up

January 12, 2024 | by Eric B. Meyer

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The Fair Labor Standards Act can be a veritable legal liability minefield for the uninitiated. Just ask several of my friends who practice law on the plaintiff’s side. Heck, it can put an employment lawyer’s kids through college, no matter on which side of the “v” they practice. 😏

Last night, I read a news release from the U.S. Department of Labor that helps put this into perspective.

281,870 reasons not to attempt a kickback scheme to avoid paying overtime

November 14, 2023 | by Eric B. Meyer

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It’s not often that I attempt to locate images for blog posts using ‘kickback’ as a search term.

But when I do, rest assured that some employer really stepped in it. Continue reading

Some drug rehabilitation center patients sued for, get this, unpaid overtime. And they may win!

September 19, 2023 | by Eric B. Meyer

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The Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) is the federal wage and hour law that protects all covered workers from substandard wages and oppressive working hours by requiring that employers pay employees minimum wage and overtime when they work more than 40 hours in a workweek.

Determining who counts as an employee is a fact-specific. The ultimate determination turns on the “economic reality” of the relationship between the parties involved.

This is not a drill. A new, federal overtime proposal will cost employers $1.2 billion.

August 31, 2023 | by Eric B. Meyer

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For the first time in four years, the U.S. Department of Labor plans to increase the minimum salary level to be exempt from the Fair Labor Standard Act’s overtime requirements. Continue reading

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