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The Employer Handbook BlogBooby trapped! No break time for nursing employee; no lawsuit either.
HEY! Which one of you just threw that breast pump at my head?
[annnnnnnd cue music]
** Dons sensitivity invisibility cloak **
Articles Posted in Wage and Hour
Retaliatory voodoo, Courtney Love, and lots of unpaid $$$
Sounds like a bad batch of Pennyroyal Tea. Just another Tuesday here at the ole Handbook.
<div style=”text-align: right;”>The San Francisco Chronicle is reporting here that Courtney Love, Kurt Cobain’s widow, is reuniting the band ** thank you for sparing our ear holes ** being sued by a former assistant seeking, among other things, unpaid overtime. The plaintiff also claims that Love asked her to perform voodoo rituals ** not yet, next paragraph ** unethical duties such as hiring a hacker and forging legal correspondence. The San Francisco Employment Lawyer Blog has more on this case here.
From Hole to holes in a doll pin-cushion, with a hat-tip to @ChaimBook, the Madison St. Clair Record reports here that a Wisconsin woman is suing her former employer for sexual harassment and retaliation. The plaintiff claims that she was forced to look at nude female magazines, calendars and sexually explicit language used by her co-workers and direct supervisor. Fairly standard sexual-harassment fare. What makes this case blogworthy is that, after she complained, the plaintiff allegedly suffered retaliation in the form of two voodoo dolls in her desk, one of which had a black pin stuck into her chest.
Pennsylvania to relax OT requirements for hospitals
Last week, Pennsylvania’s Governor, Tom Corbett was presented with this bill that will allow hospitals and other medical care facilities in Pennsylvania to better control the scheduling of employees to control payment of overtime. Details after the jump…
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Healthcare, what? Eyeball 3 other pending employment law bills
I heard that there was some Supreme Court decision yesterday about healthcare. Want the scoop? Google it.
They zig, I’ll zag with the scoop on some other pending employment-law legislation of which employers should take note…after the jump…
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Supreme Court: No overtime pay for pharmaceutical sales reps
Under the Fair Labor Standards Act, a company must pay overtime to non-exempt employees who work over 40 hours in a particular workweek. Non-exempt, huh? That implies that the FLSA also contains various exemptions from overtime pay for employees who meet those requirements. Indeed it does. One of those exemptions is called the “outside sales” exemption. To qualify for the outside sales employee exemption, all of the following tests must be met:
- The employee’s primary duty must be making sales (as defined in the FLSA); and
- The employee must be customarily and regularly engaged away from the employer’s place or places of business.
The pharmaceutical industry is chock full of sales representatives whose job it is to go to doctors’ offices and convince physicians to place orders with drug makers. However, these sales reps never actually transfer title to the drugs. That is illegal in the drug industry.
So then, the question is, do these sales reps qualify for the FLSA’s outside sales exemption? Well, funny you should ask, because that’s what the Supreme Court decided yesterday (here). Details after the jump…
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4 pending bills that could change the NJ employment landscape
One of my favorite reads on NJ employment law is Ogletree Deakins’s New Jersey eAuthority. The June 2012 issue highlights several pieces of legislation now pending in NJ of which employers should take note. I’ve summarized four of them after the jump…
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Paycheck Fairness Act fails in the Senate, plus other news…
Billed as a way to provide more effective remedies to victims of discrimination in the payment of wages on the basis of sex, the Paycheck Fairness Act, did not make it out of the Senate yesterday. The Paycheck Fairness Act earned 52 votes in favor of proceeding to final consideration, eight votes shy of the 60 votes necessary for cloture. The vote came down strictly along party lines, with the two independent senators voting with the Democrats and Sen. Mark Kirk (R-Ill.) not voting. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) changed his vote so that he could bring the bill up again.
In other news…
- The Eleventh Circuit Court of appeals ruled on Monday that Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 permits claims for retaliatory hostile work environment. The decision brings the Eleventh Circuit in line with everyone else.
That’s what they said: “Naked ambition” and a “voyeur boss”? (And more…)
As evidenced by the nature of this blog post and the picture on the right, it’s best not to leave me in the office alone, unsupervised, with an iPhone, and App Store credits, as I punch this out at 10:52 at night on a Thursday. (And yet, somehow, the Wall Street Journal deems me quotable).
Rest assured, everything I do, I do it for you. And, best of all, it’s all employment-law related. Love my job!
(My wife has to be cool with me using our wedding song for this blog post, right? Love ya, baby! “Take me as I am….”)
That’s what he said: “Oktoberfest” & “No OT for you!”
Cool image, huh? I drawed it myself. The fact that I took the time to do that suggests that I am in no condition to blog intelligently. Plus, Pandora is on the fritz, so I am all sorts of pissy. Therefore, before I turn out the lights and lock the door at the office, how about some Slipknot — anger issues, Eric? — and “That’s what he said” after the jump…
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Fact or Fiction: FLSA preempts state wage and hour laws?
That’s right folks. It’s time for another edition of “Fact or Fiction” a/k/a “Quick Answers to Quick Questions” a/k/a QATQQ f/k/a “I don’t feel like writing a long blog post” d/b/a (just for today) “Eric’s 36th-Birthday Post”.
*** Sigh ***
Ahh…let’s get to today’s question: