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Class-action lawyers could be salivating at this new “wage theft” bill in Congress.

There are members of Congress who believe that many employers commit something called “wage theft.”

There are members of Congress who believe that many employers commit something called “wage theft.”

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
Dijares, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Two wage and hour posts in a row! And this one has an 80’s hair metal track (with a Milton Berle cameo) to back it.
So, cut off your sleeves and sing along as we talk about rounding time under the Fair Labor Standards Act.

By Terry Foote – I took this photograph while attending a Spring Training game, CC BY-SA 4.0, Link
Because who is going to click if I had titled this post, “The Third Circuit clarifies when compensable work is the ‘integral and indispensable.'”
But, now that you’re here, you might as well stick around for this wage-and-hour lesson. Continue reading

Employment lawyers often quip that they could walk into a workplace and spot at least one violation of the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), the federal law governing the payment of overtime pay at not less than time and one-half the regular rate of pay for all hours worked over 40 hours in a workweek. Continue reading

According to the U.S. Department of Labor, “federal wage and hour investigators have seen corrupt employers try all kinds of scams to shortchange workers and to intimidate or retaliate against employees, but a northern California restaurant’s attempt to use an alleged priest to get employees to admit workplace ‘sins’ may be among the most shameless.”
Me? I haven’t seen anything this sacrilegious since Homer ate a god waffle that Marge dislodged from the Simpsons’ ceiling. Continue reading
Roman Oleinik, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons
It wasn’t quite instant karma. But two years after paying a worker’s final wages in a wheelbarrow full of oily pennies, an employer learned an expensive wage and hour lesson.

For over a decade, federal law has required most employers to provide a nursing mother with reasonable break time to express breast milk after the birth of her child for up to one year after childbirth. Last December, the PUMP for Nursing Mothers Act became law. The PUMP Act provides additional workplace protections for employees who need to express breast milk, creating protections for an estimated nine million more employees.
Last week, the Wage and Hour Division published, Enforcement of Protections for Employees to Pump Breast Milk at Work, to help Department of Labor field staff enforce the law. This blog post is your movie trailer version of this latest publication.

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

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