Practical HR Tips, News & Advice. Updated Daily.
As the federal minimum wage debate heats up, the real challenge for employers could be at the state level, if a dozen pending measures to increase state minimum wages gain traction. The proposals share DNA with federal measures being pushed by President Obama and congressional Democrats — to raise the minimum wages and in many […]
To prevent the consequences from imprecise employee handbook language, employers should regularly review their handbooks and written policies. Since wage and hour lawsuits make up a significant part of litigation, W&H provisions can make a difference as you draft or review your employee handbook. Wage-and-hour related provisions should include pay details, safe harbor and state […]
We are an accounting firm that frequently hires area college students to intern for short periods throughout the year. We recently received a few outstanding applications from foreign students attending the local college. Can we hire foreign students as interns? The short answer is that yes, foreign students are eligible for paid employment off campus, […]
Local governments and municipalities face many of the same wage and hour challenges as other employers, but they must deal with unique issues that could subject them to litigation if they aren’t fully up-to-speed on their compliance obligations. One tricky issue involves the proper classification of all workers — whether they fall under one of […]
Properly executed arbitration agreements can prohibit employees from bringing Fair Labor Standards Act collective actions in some federal courts. This is despite a National Labor Relations Board decision holding that mandatory arbitration for employment disputes violates the National Labor Relations Act, a federal district court has ruled. In doing so, the court joined other courts […]
Employers using unpaid interns need to be wary as lawsuits challenging the structure of these unpaid jobs continue to crop up. In recent years, several high-profile lawsuits — primarily in the publishing and entertainment industries — have highlighted the exposure employers can face. Plaintiffs generally allege they were doing the work of employees and were […]
Exemption mistakes mean enormous liability for employers, yet many put surprisingly little effort into their classification decisions. Even when they are sincerely trying to comply with the law, many employers misunderstand or misapply exemptions. To identify the most common exemption myths, we turned to BLR’s Wage & Hour Compliance—Practical Solutions for HR. It offers the […]
Exemptions are on the Wage & Hour Division’s hot list—and that means they should be on yours, too. In today’s Advisor, we’ll cover the slippery issue of the motor carrier exemption. For help with this tricky exemption, we turned to BLR’s Wage & Hour Compliance—Practical Solutions for HR. It says that the FLSA provides an […]
Some employers don’t just need to know the federal wage-and-hour rules — they also need to know the currency exchange rate if they pay workers in a non-U.S. currency. Paying workers in a foreign currency is acceptable under the Fair Labor Standards Act. But the amount paid still must meet the U.S. minimum wage, as […]
A class action allegation cannot succeed when each employee works a different schedule and has countless other fact-dependent duties and responsibilities. For one employer, thousands of employees with varied work schedules and pay rates could not demonstrate “class” status for Fair Labor Standards Act purposes. This was particularly true when the employees were paid on […]