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The Employer Handbook Blog
Articles Posted in Wage and Hour
The Thirty-Two Hour Workweek Act, introduced this week in Congress, is exactly what you think it is
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
The Employer Handbook Friday Zoom Happy Hour Returns on Friday, March 8 at Noon ET
The U.S. Department of Labor rules on analyzing and determining who is an employee or independent contractor under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) take effect on March 11, 2024.
Has your business procrastinated in preparing for them?
If so, do not worry; I’ve got your back.
Continue reading
Instead of hiring a lawyer, a business owner ordered to pay wages used AI to prepare his appeal. It was a giant clusterf**k!
A multi-year dispute over unpaid wages went from bad to a whole lot worse for a Midwest business owner when he decided to appeal a trial court ruling that he owed over $300k in wages, damages, and attorney’s fees by representing himself and hiring an “online consultant” who used artificial intelligence to prepare an appellate brief. Continue reading
Should Mrs. Doubtfire have been paid overtime?
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
Folks, we have our first lawsuit to try to KO the DOL’s new independent contractor rule
It took less than a week for a group of freelance writers and editors to file this federal court lawsuit to block enforcement of the U.S. Department of Labor’s new independent contractor rules, which I wrote about here last week.
If you thought the DOL’s final rule would sail through without a fight, think again. Continue reading
Let’s revisit how to handle FMLA and FLSA for a snow day office closure.
Back in the day, the mere promise of Cheerios and chocolate milk was all it took to dupe my two oldest kids (then three and five) to shovel the driveway for a few hours. Come to think of it, I preferred the stick to the carrot. So I probably threatened to cancel Nickelodeon and, with that, all vestiges of Yo Gabba Gabba. Either way, the children were too young and naive to ask for minimum wage or form a union. So, they shoveled snow.
Fortunately, the littlest one — salting the walkway out of frame — lacked the manual dexterity to call the NJ Department of Labor on me.
Ah, the good ‘ol days. Continue reading
Join me on Wednesday, January 17, at 1 PM for a webinar on the new DOL Independent Contractor Rules
Last week, the U.S. Department of Labor finalized its rules on how to analyze and determine who is an employee or independent contractor under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), which I wrote about here.
This week, I’m co-presenting “Independent Contractor Update – How Am I to Determine if I Am Compliant?”
And all of you are invited. Continue reading
Today’s free “wage and hour 101” post is the silver lining to an employer’s $1.6M screw-up
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.
