The Fair Labor Standards Act requires employers to pay covered nonexempt workers overtime pay at a rate not less than one and one-half times the regular rate of pay after 40 hours of work in a workweek. So what happens when employees claim not to receive premium overtime pay despite working more than 40 hours in a workweek? Continue reading
Articles Posted in Wage and Hour
A new bill in Congress aims to restore OVERTIME protections for employees to “HISTORIC LEVELS.”
Federal law requires most companies to pay minimum wage and overtime pay for employees unless they qualify for an exemption. Employees generally must meet certain tests regarding their job duties and get a salary of at least $684 per week, which works out to just $35,568 per year.
But a new overtime reform bill introduced earlier this week in both the House and the Senate aims to boost that salary level yearly until 2027 to make it much easier for salaried American workers to be overtime eligible. Continue reading
Do employers risk violating the FLSA by reducing PTO? Is it part of an employee’s salary?
Those were the critical issues in a precedential decision that the Third Circuit Court of Appeals issued yesterday. So let’s talk about it. Continue reading
A federal appellate court using Homer Simpson to explain wage and hour law?!? Woo hoo!!

Benoît Prieur, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons
Fair Labor Standards Act lawsuits aren’t exactly fodder for Silver Screen blockbusters.
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How can an employee make $200K, PLUS overtime?!? The Supreme Court explains…

Image by Clker-Free-Vector-Images from Pixabay
A company operating an offshore oil rig paid one of its “tool pushers” anywhere from $963 to $1,341 per day. His paycheck, issued every two weeks, amounted to his daily rate times the number of days he had worked in the pay period. So if the employee had worked only one day, his paycheck would total (at the range’s low end) $963; but if he had worked all 14 days, his paycheck would come to $13,482. Under that compensation scheme, the company paid the employee over $200,000 annually, with no overtime compensation.
But, the employee who supervised many others and otherwise satisfied the duties tests for the executive exemption under the Fair Labor Standards Act sued for unpaid overtime because, he claimed, the company failed to guarantee him at least $455 per week in salary. Continue reading
Let’s talk about whether you are paying teleworking employees properly.
The U.S. Department of Labor’s Field Assistance Bulletin on employee telework is the blogging gift that keeps on giving. Continue reading
Don’t sleep on state wage and hour laws in 2023, especially if you are a multi-state employer.
I like to tell people who will listen to me, which frequently isn’t even my kids, that I can go into most workplaces and sleuth out at least one wage-and-hour violation. Continue reading
You might have to pay employees to turn on and watch their computers boot up.
I’m hitting this technology theme hard this week. Continue reading
When do employers risk FLSA violations by raising and lowering hourly wage rates?
The Fair Labor Standards Act can present a minefield for even the savviest wage-and-hour gurus. Last night, I read a Pennsylvania federal court decision that helps clarify when employers can (and can’t) adjust employee pay rates. Continue reading
There’s retaliation, and then there’s beating up the complainant and sending him to the emergency room
The Fair Labor Standards Act makes it unlawful for employers to retaliate against employees who complain about violations of the FLSA. However, I don’t think the drafters of the law considered physical assault as a form of retaliation.
But the U.S. Department of Labor is now suing two employers and their owner. They allegedly responded to an employee’s request for his paycheck by beating him up, which resulted in a trip to the emergency room. Continue reading