Wage and Hour Defense Blog

As we wrote here just several days ago, Californians were facing the seemingly unimaginable this week– the possibility of living without ride share services for the foreseeable future.

In short, a state court judge issue a temporary restraining order (“TRO”) requiring ride share companies to treat their drivers as employees in purported compliance with  AB 5, California’s controversial new law that only permits workers to be classified as independent contractors in most industries if they satisfy an “ABC” test.

After the same judge refused to stay the TRO during the ...

To some, it may feel like it was a lifetime ago when ride share companies did not even exist.  In those seemingly long-ago days, people relied upon friends to drive them to or from the airport, or assigned designated drivers for those nights when they attended events where alcohol would be served, or used other methods of transportation to travel the roadways to their various destinations.

Californians may soon be living like that again.

As we shared the other day, a California Superior Court has issued a temporary restraining order requiring ride share companies to treat their drivers as ...

We have written here frequently about California’s controversial AB 5 law, which permits companies to treat workers as independent contractors only if they satisfy a stringent “ABC” test.

The broad statute, unambiguously written to try to force companies to treat gig economy workers as employees, has been the subject of a great deal of debate and litigation, including a state court action filed by the State Attorney General trying to force ride share companies to treat their drivers as employees.

In the action filed by the State Attorney General, the Superior Court judge has ...

In employment, as in life generally, breaking up can be hard to do.  This is particularly so when a departing employee owes the employer money.  Most employers understand that applicable law often prohibits simply deducting such debts from an employee’s final paycheck.  Consider, for example, a recently terminated employee who refuses to return a $500 printer the employer provided to allow the employee to work from home.  In most states, absent an agreement in writing, wage payment laws prohibit the employer from deducting $500 from the employee’s final paycheck to recover the cost ...

As we wrote here recently,  two federal courts in California rejected Postmates’ attempt to escape having to defend thousands of individual arbitrations filed by drivers contending they have been misclassified as independent contractors. Those decisions require Postmates to pay millions in arbitration fees alone.

A federal court in Illinois has now reached the same conclusion, holding that Postmates must proceed with more than 200 individual arbitrations that will cost Postmates $11 million in arbitration fees.

Arbitration agreements with class action waivers have become ...

The California Labor Commissioner’s Office has taken aim at Mobile Wash, Inc., a business that offers a mobile app for on-demand car washing and detailing services, filing a lawsuit against the company and its president to enforce AB5, California’s controversial law designed to make it more difficult for businesses to engage workers as independent contractors.

As we wrote here, AB5 codified and expanded the “ABC test” adopted by the California Supreme Court in Dynamex Operations West, Inc. v. Superior Court for determining whether workers in California should be ...

While the COVID-19 pandemic remains a challenge to employers nationwide, the U.S. Department of Labor’s Wage and Hour Division (“WHD”) continues to field non-COVID-related wage and hour questions.  On June 25, 2020, the WHD issued five new opinion letters addressing the outside sales, administrative, and retail or service establishment exemptions under the Fair Labor Standards Act (“FLSA”), as well as the relationship between third-party payments to workers and the FLSA’s minimum wage requirement.  Employers should take note of these useful explanations of key ...

The times they are a-changin’ and Washington’s rules relating to overtime pay are changing with them. Effective July 1, 2020, the Washington State Department of Labor & Industries (“L&I”) has updated the criteria for workers to be exempt from receiving overtime pay, paid sick leave, and other requirements under the state Minimum Wage Act. These changes affect executive, administrative, and professional workers, as well as outside salespeople and computer professionals across all industries in Washington State.

Overtime exemption rules generally require “white ...

Full-Time and Part-Time Employees under the FFCRA

The Department of Labor’s Wage and Hour Division issued standards governing emergency paid sick leave and expanded family and medical leave available to full-time and part-time employees for COVID-19 related reasons in its April 6, 2020 temporary rule on Paid Leave under the Families First Coronavirus Response Act (“FFCRA”) (the “Temporary Rule”).

Of particular interest to this blog is the Temporary Rule’s discussion of what it means to be a “full-time” or “part-time” employee for purposes of taking ...

As states across the country start to reopen their economies after COVID-19 shutdowns, many businesses are likewise preparing to have employees return to work.

However, before reopening, businesses will need to comply with numerous state and local protocols designed to ensure the health and safety of employees and consumers, including social distancing, maximum occupancy and one-way flow.

Even if not required, many employers are instituting employee temperature checks upon arrival at the workplace. While the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission recently endorsed ...

Many hospitality businesses, such as restaurants and bars, have found themselves restructuring their daily operations in light of the current global COVID-19 health crisis, and the subsequent federal, state, and local shelter in place orders. For instance, where restaurants and bars once served customers on a dine-in basis, perhaps they are now restricted to take-out only or delivery options, and, as a result, many employers who are still operating in the wake of the pandemic now have very few employees with customer-facing roles.

Because of the necessary changes in daily ...

Let me be the millionth person to say that we are living in unprecedented times.

Well, unless you count the Spanish Flu, which few of us probably dealt with as that was more than a century ago.

And, not incidentally, few if any of the wage-hour laws employers deal with today were in place back then.

As employers navigate issues that they never imagined, there are more than a few myths circulating about wage-hour laws that are worth mentioning here – and worth debunking.

Myth No. 1: “Employees Won’t Sue Over Alleged Wage-Hour Violations Occurring During The COVID-19 Crisis”

The ...

With summer rapidly approaching and COVID-19 shelter-in-place orders still in effect, many companies face an important and difficult decision of canceling this year’s summer programs, delaying start dates or conducting programs virtually. This ultimately will be a business decision with no one-size-fits-all answer.

A good first step is to assess whether the influx of new summer workers will help or hinder current operations. Are temporary summer interns a boost to productivity or a drag on experienced employees who may be called upon to train and mentor them? Will the employer expect to offer employment to these summer recruits following the internship?

In addition, given the seismic nature of COVID-19 that has indiscriminately shaken businesses in most industries, can an employer’s business afford to bring on temporary summer workers and, if so, does the business have the literal and figurative bandwidth to support these workers, especially if they will be teleworking for at least part of the summer?

Below are five compliance and management issues employers should consider for their upcoming summer programs.

Onboarding

Typically employers have a pre-employment screening process in place for summer interns/analysts/associates, which may include, among other things, screening for illegal drugs and controlled substances; investigating and verifying criminal history; and verifying education and prior employment history. Many steps in the screening process take place in person. However, even where new hires may be asked to commence employment remotely, including an incoming summer class, compliance is still possible.

Since the start of COVID-19 pandemic, the federal government has relaxed many of the regulatory requirements for onboarding new hires. On March 20, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security announced that for the next 60 days or for the duration of the National Emergency (whichever is sooner), employers with staff teleworking due to COVID-19 can obtain and inspect new employees’ identity and employment authorization documents remotely rather in the employee’s physical presence, as long as they provide written documentation of their remote onboarding and teleworking policy for each employee.

Generally, the Fair Labor Standards Act (“FLSA”) requires employers to compensate their non-exempt employees for all time that they are required or allowed to perform work, regardless of where and when the work is done.  However, an exception exists for small amounts of time that are otherwise compensable work time but challenging to record, otherwise known as the de minimis doctrine.  Of course, the million-dollar question is how much time is considered de minimis.  Unfortunately, there is no bright-line rule and the answer may differ under federal law and California law, or ...

California generally requires that, when employees accrue vacation time during their employment, any accrued but unused vacation time must be paid out at the end of employment.  But so-called “unlimited” vacation policies have generally been understood to be a potential exception to that rule.  Such “unlimited” policies are more accurately referred to as “professional” or “reasonable use” vacation policies, where such policies do not provide for vacation to accrue.  Instead, employees under such policies are allowed to take an unspecified amount of paid time ...

As previously discussed, Colorado officially adopted the Colorado Overtime and Minimum Pay Standards Order # 36 (“COMPS Order”) on January 22, 2020, which went into effect on March 16, 2020.  However, the Division of Labor Standards and Statistics in the Colorado Department of Labor and Employment (“the Division”) has recently implemented temporary emergency modifications to the COMPS Order.  The temporary changes will remain in effect through July 14, 2020 (the “temporary period”), although the State intends to go through a formal notice and comment period to make ...

Given the number of states that have already ordered the closure of non-essential businesses due to the COVID-19 pandemic, employers fortunate to remain operational are likely dealing with the myriad challenges of a remote workforce.

As we previously wrote here, employers with work-from-home (“WFH”) policies in place need to make sure they are appropriately compensating their workers and are otherwise complying with all applicable federal, state, and local wage and hour laws.

In the WFH context, the related wage and hour concepts of “waiting time” and “on-call ...

In an effort to slow the spread of the 2019 novel coronavirus (“COVID-19”), many employers around the country are encouraging—if not requiring—their employees to work remotely.  Although telecommuting during a public health crisis presents obvious benefits, it also presents employers with unique challenges, such as ensuring compliance with applicable expense reimbursement laws.

Employees working from home may incur any number of expenses – home computers, printers, Internet service, WiFi connections, smartphones and even paper, pens and other office ...

Our colleagues Jeffrey H. Ruzal, Denise M. Dadika, Maxine H. Neuhauser, and Eduardo J. Quiroga have co-authored an Act Now Advisory that will be of interest to our readers: "Department of Labor Issues OSHA, Wage/Hour, and FMLA Guidance Addressing COVID-19."

Following is an excerpt:

In response to the spreading 2019 novel coronavirus (“COVID-19”) pandemic, which has now been declared a national emergency by President Trump, the Department of Labor has released guidance to employers, summarized more fully below:

• • The Occupational Safety and Health Administration ...

Recently, we wrote here about a federal court order requiring DoorDash to conduct more than 5,000 individual arbitrations under the terms of its mandatory arbitration agreements, with each arbitration to address claims that it had misclassified its drivers as independent contractors.

The order would fall in the category of “Be Careful What You Wish For.”  In seeking to avoid class or collective actions by having employees sign arbitration agreements with class action waivers, employers face the possibility of hundreds or thousands of individual arbitration for which they ...

We encourage our readers to visit Workforce Bulletin, the newest blog from our colleagues at Epstein Becker Green (EBG).

Workforce Bulletin will feature a range of cutting-edge issues—such as sexual harassment, diversity and inclusion, pay equity, artificial intelligence in the workplace, cybersecurity, and the impact of the coronavirus outbreak on human resources—that are of concern to employers across all industries. EBG's full announcement is here.

Click here to subscribe for email notifications—you’ll receive a confirmation email to click.

(And if you haven't ...

It is not unusual for businesses at risk of employee theft to implement security screenings for employees as they exit the employer’s facilities.  Such screenings are especially common in industries where small, costly items could easily be slipped into a pocket or handbag – jewelry, smartphones, computer chips, etc.

In light of the California Supreme Court’s decision in Frlekin v. Apple, Inc., those security screenings now seem likely to lead to even more litigation wherein employees claim that they were not paid for their time spent waiting to be screened, at least in ...

As we recently wrote here, Uber and Postmates (and two of their drivers) to file an eleventh-hour lawsuit seeking to enjoin the enforcement of California’s controversial new independent contractor law – known as AB 5 – against them.

In a significant blow to the challenge to the companies’ challenge to the new law, the court has denied Uber and Postmates’ request for a preliminary injunction to block the enforcement of AB 5 against them.

In denying the request for a preliminary injunction, the court concluded that Uber and Postmates were not likely to succeed on the merits of ...

As previously discussed, Colorado has taken steps to increase the salary threshold for employees that fall under the “white collar” exemptions, following in the footsteps of Alaska, California, New York, Maine, and Washington State – and the federal Department of Labor. On January 22, 2020, the Colorado Department of Labor adopted the final Colorado Overtime and Minimum Pay Standards Order #36 (“COMPS Order”), which makes significant changes for both exempt and non-exempt employees. Most provisions become effective March 16, 2020, with the exception of the ...

As we wrote here, United States District Court Judge Kimberly J. Mueller of the Eastern District of California wrote a brief “minute order” explaining that she was issuing a preliminary injunction to halt enforcement of California’s controversial anti-arbitration law, known as AB 51.

The new law, which was set to go into effect on January 1, 2020, would outlaw mandatory arbitration agreements with employees. AB 51 would also prohibit arbitration agreements that would require individuals to take affirmative action to be excluded from arbitration, such as opting out.  ...

Most employers are well aware that employees must be paid on a “salary basis” to be considered exempt from the overtime requirements of the Fair Labor Standards Act (“FLSA”). This means employees must receive the same amount of pay each week regardless of the amount or quality of work they perform for a given week. Accordingly, exempt employees must be paid their full weekly salary for any week in which they perform work, whether or not the employee has actually worked a full work week. See 29 C.F.R. § 541.602(a)(1).

One issue that may fly under the radar, however, is which ...

As we have written here, the day before California’s controversial AB 5 was set to go into effect, U.S. District Court Judge Roger Benitez issued a temporary restraining order to block enforcement of the law as to approximately 70,000 independent truckers.

Subsequently, Judge Benitez granted a preliminary injunction to prevent enforcement of the statute to those truckers.

In reaching his decision, Judge Benitez concluded that, as to independent truckers, the Federal Aviation Administration Authorization Act preempts AB 5.

The preliminary injunction is a significant ...

On Thursday, January 16, 2020, the U.S. Department of Labor’s Wage and Hour Division (“WHD”) published in the Federal Register the much-anticipated Final Rule regarding joint employer status under the Fair Labor Standards Act.  This rule completes the rulemaking process initiated in early April of last year, when WHD published its Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (“NPRM”), which we discussed here.

The new standards reflected in the Final Rule become effective, barring court action in the interim, on March 16, 2020.  This interval of just 342 days from publication of the NPRM ...

In its first installment of opinions letters in 2020, the U.S. Department of Labor’s Wage and Hour Division (“WHD”) addressed two issues under the Fair Labor Standards Act (“FLSA”): (i) the salary basis requirements in the context of per-project compensation arrangements and (ii) calculation of overtime pay for employees who receive nondiscretionary lump-sum bonus payments earned over time and not tied to a specific period.  (A third letter, FMLA2020-1-A, considered FMLA requirements vis-à-vis public employees.)  While neither of these FLSA opinion letters ...

As we recently wrote here, just hours before California’s controversial AB 5 went into effect, a federal court in San Diego issued a temporary restraining order (“TRO”) to enjoin enforcement of the independent contractor statute as to approximately 70,000 independent truckers, many of whom have invested substantial sums of money to purchase their own trucks and to work as “owner-operators.”

Now, days after a state court judge ruled that the statute does not apply to independent truckers, the federal court has extended the TRO while it decides whether to enter a ...

As we recently wrote here, on December 29, 2019, just days before California’s new arbitration statute known as AB 51 was to go into effect, a federal judge in the United States District Court of the Eastern District of California granted a temporary restraining order (“TRO”) to enjoin enforcement of AB 51.

The new law, which was set to go into effect on January 1, 2020, would outlaw mandatory arbitration agreements with employees.

AB 51 would also prohibit arbitration agreements that would require individuals to take affirmative action to be excluded from arbitration, such ...

With the start of the New Year, new state and local minimum wage increases have gone into effect for non-exempt employees across the country.

The chart below summarizes the new minimum wage rates that went into effect on January 1, 2020, unless otherwise indicated.  (More will take effect July 1, 2020.)

On January 1, 2020, California’s new independent contractor statute, known as AB 5, went into effect.  The law codifies the use of an “ABC” test to determine if an individual may be classified as an independent contractor.

The hastily passed and controversial statute has been challenged by a number of groups as being unconstitutional and/or preempted by federal law, including ride-share and delivery companies and freelance writers.

Just hours before AB 5 went into effect, a California federal court in San Diego enjoined enforcement of the statute as to some individuals – ...

AB 5, California’s hastily passed and controversial independent contractor statute, which codifies the use of an “ABC test,” is set to go into effect on January 1, 2020.

Already, the California Trucking Association has filed suit challenging the statute.

As have freelance writers and photographers.

Now, it’s ride-share and delivery companies’ turn to file suit.

Those companies have already commenced the process to create a ballot initiative that would allow voters to decide whether to exempt ride-share and delivery drivers from the “ABC test.”

Now, on December ...

We have written previously about California’s new statute, referred to as AB 5, which codifies and expands the “ABC test” for independent contractors set forth in Dynamex Operations West, Inc. v. Superior Court.

A California ballot initiative that would remove ride-share and delivery drivers from application of the “ABC test” is already underway.

And the California Trucking Association has filed suit challenging the statute.

Now, other organizations have challenged the statute. Specifically, organizations representing freelance writers and photographers have ...

As previously discussed, the federal Department of Labor has begun the process of increasing the minimum salary threshold for employees that fall under the “white collar” exemptions. Joining Alaska, New York, and California, Washington State and Maine have now approved higher salary thresholds for employees that fall under the exemptions; Colorado is expected to follow in early 2020.

Effective July 1, 2020, Washington employers will be required to pay a higher salary to satisfy the professional, administrative, and executive exemptions, with gradual increases from July ...

It seems as though there is a minefield that employers must navigate to ensure that they fulfill their wage and hour obligations to their employees. Employers must somehow comply with overlapping and seemingly contradictory federal, state, district, county, and local requirements. The wave of civil actions that are filed against employers alleging wage and hour violations is not slowing. And given the potential financial consequences for non-compliance, illustrated in part by a $102 million award for technical paystub violations, meeting these requirements must be a ...

As winter once again approaches, employers, particularly those in cold-weather states, face the recurring specter of inclement weather affecting business operations and employee attendance.  While the weather may create stress and disruption for a business and its people, employers must not lose sight of the fact that the rules governing how you pay your employees continue to apply throughout any weather event.

There are five main rules that employers need to keep in mind when bad weather strikes:

1. If a business closes for any amount of time less than a full workweek, it must ...

On November 26, 2019, San Francisco Superior Court Judge Richard B. Ulmer ruled that the Federal Arbitration Act (“FAA”) might not apply to Uber drivers who are engaged in interstate commerce while driving passengers to or from international airports.

In his claims before the Division of Labor Standards and Enforcement (“DLSE”), driver Sangam Patel (“Patel”) seeks recovery of unpaid wages, overtime pay, vacation pay, meal and rest break premiums, and unpaid business expenses allegedly owed by Uber. Uber petitioned to compel arbitration of Patel’s (“Patel” ...

On November 21, 2019, the Pennsylvania Department of Labor and Industry (“DLI”) formally withdrew new regulations that would have increased the minimum salary requirements for the Pennsylvania Minimum Wage Act’s (“PMWA”) white-collar exemptions.  The withdrawal occurred on the same day the state’s Independent Regulatory Review Commission (“IRRC”) was scheduled to consider the new requirements and rule upon them at a public meeting.

The Withdrawn Rule

The final rule was issued on October 17, 2019, and would have increased the minimum salary threshold for the ...

As businesses throughout the State of California continue to grapple with the potential implications of AB5, a new law designed to make it more difficult for companies to treat workers as independent contractors, the California Trucking Association (“CTA”) is taking legal action.

As we previously wrote here, AB5 codified and expanded the “ABC test” adopted by the California Supreme Court in Dynamex Operations West, Inc. v. Superior Court for determining whether workers in California should be classified as employees or as independent contractors.

To satisfy the ABC ...

After a false start three years ago, the federal Department of Labor (“DOL”) will finally be rolling out an increased minimum salary threshold for employees qualifying under the “white collar” exemptions. The increase in the salary threshold for professional, administrative, and executive exemptions (making up the “white collar” exemptions) under the Federal Fair Labor Standards Act (“FLSA”) will become effective on January 1, 2020.

In order to qualify for one of these exemptions, there are three elements to meet:

• The employee must be paid on a salary basis ...

Upsetting what many considered settled precedent, a California Court of Appeal has held that a mandatory service charge may qualify as a “gratuity” under California Labor Code Section 351 that must be distributed to the non-managerial employee(s) who provided the service.

In O’Grady v. Merchant Exchange Productions, Inc., No. A148513, plaintiff, a banquet server and bartender, filed a putative class action against their employer for its failure to distribute the entirety of the proceeds of an automatic 21% fee added to every food and beverage banquet bill to the ...

As we wrote here recently, California’s Governor Gavin Newsom signed a bill known as AB5, which is designed to make it more difficult for companies to treat workers as independent contractors.  The new law, which goes into effect on January 1, 2020, codified and expands the “ABC” test adopted by the California Supreme Court in Dynamex Operations West, Inc. v. Superior Court for determining whether workers in California should be classified as employees or as independent contractors.

Now some gig economy businesses are striking back.  On October 29, 2019, a coalition of ...

On August 26, 2019, we wrote of the plan by the U.S. Department of Labor’s Wage and Hour Division (“WHD”) to update the Fair Labor Standard Act (“FLSA”) regulations on calculating overtime pay for salaried non-exempt workers to allow employers to include additional forms of compensation in the so-called “fluctuating workweek” calculations.  Under a fluctuating workweek calculation, an employer divides all of an employee’s relevant compensation for a given workweek by the total number of hours the employee worked in the week to derive the regular rate for that ...

California law has specific requirements regarding the payment of final wages to terminated employees. The failure to comply with those requirements can require an employer to pay an individual up to 30 days of pay – known as “waiting time” penalties. As “waiting time” claims are often pursued in the context of class actions, where plaintiffs seek up to 30 days of pay for each former employee, it is critical that employers understand when final wages must be paid. And that deadline is different depending up whether the company has terminated the employment or the employee has ...

In bringing meal and rest period claims on behalf of their clients, the plaintiffs’ bar has long argued that merely because there was an alleged meal or rest period violation, there were also “derivative” statutory violations entitling their clients to additional penalties.  By arguing that an employer is also on the hook for such penalties, plaintiffs’ attorneys argue that the potential exposure is greater.  And with greater potential exposure, employers will be more inclined to settle – or so the rationale goes.

These purported “derivative” violations have come in ...

Our colleague Jeffrey H. Ruzal at Epstein Becker Green has recently published a post on the Hospitality Labor and Employment Law blog that will be of interest to our readers: “U.S. DOL Announces Proposed New Rule on Tip Credits and Pooling."

Following is an excerpt:

The proposed rulemaking will codify the DOL’s recent guidance that an employer may take a tip credit for any amount of time an employee in a tip-earning occupation performs related non-tipped duties that are performed contemporaneously with, or within a reasonable time immediately before or after ...

In the fall of 2016, before the Obama administration increases to the minimum salary were set to go into effect (spoiler alert – they didn’t!), we wrote in this space about the challenges facing employers in addressing those expected changes: “Compliance with the New DOL Overtime Exemption Rule May Create Unexpected Challenges for Employers.”

As we wrote earlier this week, the current administration’s changes are set to go into effect on January 1, 2020: “U.S. Department of Labor Issues Long-Awaited Final Rule Updating the Compensation Requirements for the FLSA’s ...

What is considered compensable travel time pursuant to the Fair Labor Standards Act (“FLSA”) is not always clear or intuitive to employers, even for those who usually have a good handle on wage and hour laws. This blog post hopefully will simplify the requirements set forth in the U.S. Department of Labor’s (“DOL”) regulations and interpretive guidance to help clarify when employees must be paid for travel time.

Ordinary Home-to-Work Travel

Likely not a surprise for most employers, employees are not entitled to pay for time that they normally spend commuting between their ...

There may soon be a fair number of big rig trucks for sale in California, as well as computers, desks and other material investments of persons who determine that they may no longer offer their services as independent contractors and must shut down their small businesses, a potential repercussion of new legislation intended to restrict the use of independent contractor status in the state.

Whether those and other practical consequences of the hurried passage of the new law were considered by the California legislature is unclear.

But the eleventh-hour exemptions that were extended ...

The U.S. Department of Labor’s Wage and Hour Division (“WHD”) continues to issue guidance at a rapid pace, releasing a new opinion letter regarding the retail or service establishment overtime exemption under the Fair Labor Standards Act (“FLSA”).  The letter brings clarity to a recurring issue affecting retailers.

FLSA Section 7(i) Exemption

As background, FLSA Section 7(i) exempts a retail or service establishment employee from the FLSA’s overtime pay requirements if (i) the employee’s regular rate of pay exceeds 1.5 times the federal minimum wage for any week ...

As part of its spring 2019 regulatory agenda, the U.S. Department of Labor’s Wage and Hour Division (“WHD”) will consider a proposed revision to the Fair Labor Standard Act’s (“FLSA”) regulations on calculating overtime pay for workers whose hours fluctuate from week to week.

Generally, non-exempt employees covered by the FLSA must receive overtime pay for hours worked in excess of 40 in a workweek at a rate at least time and one-half their regular rates of pay – the standard calculation of overtime.  However, the FLSA provides an alternative method of calculating ...

This Employment Law This Week^® Monthly Rundown discusses the most important developments for employers in August 2019.

This episode includes:

• Increased Employee Protections for Cannabis Users
• First Opinion Letters Released Under New Wage and Hour Leadership
• New Jersey and Illinois Enact Salary History Inquiry Bans
• Deadline for New York State Anti-Harassment Training Approaches
• Tip of the Week

See below to watch the full episode – click here for story details and video.

We invite you to view Employment Law This Week^® – tracking the latest developments that could ...

Given the prevalence of wage-hour class actions filed against California employers, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals from time to time asks the California Supreme Court to clarify certain California wage-hour laws. Last week, the Ninth Circuit asked again in Cole v. CRST Van Expedited, Inc., seeking clarification on the following two questions:

1. Does the absence of a formal policy on meal and rest breaks violate California law?
2. Does an employer’s failure to keep records of meal and rest breaks taken by employees create a rebuttable presumption that the breaks were not provided?

The New York State Assembly and Senate have passed a potentially groundbreaking act (S2844B/A486B) (the “Act”) that would allow current or former employees to obtain liens on their employer’s personal and real property based upon only the mere accusation of wage violations.  And it arguably would allow those employees to obtain liens against individuals, including owners, managers and supervisors.

If the Act is signed by Governor Cuomo, New York would join the few states to permit such liens based on an unproven wage violation allegation.

A lien is a legal claim or a right ...

For decades, employers have rounded non-exempt employees’ work time when calculating their compensation.  Maybe they have rounded employee work time to the nearest 10 minutes, maybe to the nearest quarter hour, but they done it and, generally, the courts have approved of it.

But the question employers with time-rounding policies should ask themselves today is this:  Why are we still rounding our employees’ time?

If your answer to that question is Because we have always done it, or Because someone told us it is lawful, it might be time to rethink the issue.

(And if your answer is ...

While it may be true that employees rarely even look at their wage statements, there is one group of persons who certainly do – plaintiffs’ lawyers.  Or, more precisely, California plaintiffs’ lawyers.

And after a stunning $102 million award against Wal-Mart for wage statements that the court concluded did not fully comply with California’s onerous wage statement laws, California plaintiffs’ lawyers are likely to look at their clients’ wage statements even more closely – and to file even more class action lawsuits alleging that employers’ wage statements failed ...

This Employment Law This Week^® Monthly Rundown discusses the most important developments for employers heading into May 2019.

The U.S. House Appropriations Committee heard testimony last month in a hearing entitled, “Combatting Wage Theft: The Critical Role of Wage and Hour Enforcement.” Our colleague Paul DeCamp testified at the hearing to provide insight on the concept of “wage theft” and the state of wage and hour enforcement, as well as how these issues affect employers and workers.

Watch the full episode.

Webinar – Spring/Summer 2019

Internship programs can help employers source and develop talent, but they do not come without their pitfalls. If you are an employer at a tech startup, a large financial institution, a fashion house, or something else entirely, and you plan on having interns this summer, this webinar is for you. Learn the steps for creating a legally compliant internship program.

For many years, the U.S. Department of Labor (“DOL”) used the “six-factor test” when determining whether an employee was legally considered an unpaid intern, such that the intern ...

On April 12, 2019, in a federal case known as Hamilton v Wal-Mart Stores, Inc., a California jury awarded more than $6 million in meal break premiums to a class of Wal-Mart employees who worked at the company’s fulfillment center in Chino, California.  The jury found that by requiring class members to complete a mandatory security check prior to leaving the facility, Wal-Mart discouraged them from leaving the premises for meal breaks, failing to comply with its obligation to provide class members with required meal breaks.  The verdict – which Wal-Mart may well appeal – provides ...

A Trending News interview from Employment Law This Week: New Proposed Overtime Rule.

Paul DeCamp discusses the U.S. Department of Labor ("DOL") issued its long-awaited proposed overtime rule on March 7, 2019. This proposed rule would take the place of the Obama-era overtime rule that was blocked by a Texas federal judge in 2017.

Watch the interview below and read our recent post.

As we wrote in this space just last week, the U.S. Department of Labor (“DOL”) has proposed a new salary threshold for most “white collar” exemptions.  The new rule would increase the minimum salary to $35,308 per year ($679 per week) – nearly the exact midpoint between the longtime $23,600 salary threshold and the $47,476 threshold that had been proposed by the Obama Administration.  The threshold for “highly compensated” employees would also increase -- from $100,000 to $147,414 per year.

Should the proposed rule go into effect – and there is every reason to believe it ...

The U.S. Department of Labor has released a proposal to update the overtime rules under the federal Fair Labor Standards Act. Employers should be prepared to raise salaries to meet the minimum thresholds, pay overtime when appropriate, and otherwise adhere to the new rules if they go into effect.

Federal overtime provisions are contained in the Fair Labor Standards Act ("FLSA"). Unless exempt, employees covered by the FLSA must receive overtime pay for hours worked over 40 in a workweek. To be exempt from overtime (i.e., not entitled to receive overtime), an exemption must apply ...

Illinois Governor Pritzger has signed a bill raising the Illinois minimum wage to $15 per hour by 2025, making Illinois the first Midwestern state to hike the minimum wage to that level. States on both coasts, including California, Massachusetts, and New Jersey, have already moved to enact such a hike.

Currently, the minimum wage in Illinois is $8.25 per hour. Under the new legislation, the minimum wage will increase to $9.25 by January 1, 2020 and to $10 on July 1, 2020. The minimum wage will then increase by $1 per hour each January 1 until it reaches $15 per hour in 2025.

The business ...

As we previously shared in this blog, the U.S. Department of Labor’s Wage and Hour Division (“WHD”) issued an opinion letter in November 2018 changing the Department’s position regarding whether and when an employer with tipped employees, such as a restaurant, can pay an employee a tipped wage less than the federal minimum wage.

The issue was whether an employer must pay a tipped employee the full minimum wage for time spent performing what the industry calls “side work”: tasks such as clearing tables or filling salt and pepper shakers that do not immediately generate ...

On February 4, 2019, a divided panel of the California Court of Appeal issued their majority and dissenting opinion in Ward v. Tilly’s, Inc.  It appears to be a precedent-setting decision in California, holding that an employee scheduled for an on-call shift may be entitled to certain wages for that shift despite never physically reporting to work.

Each of California’s Industrial Welfare Commission (“IWC”) wage orders requires employers to pay employees “reporting time pay” for each workday “an employee is required to report for work and does report, but is not put to ...

On January 17, 2019, New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy and legislative leaders announced an agreement to raise New Jersey’s minimum wage to $15 an hour by 2024. Under the agreement, and presuming enactment, effective July 1, 2019, the state’s minimum wage for most workers will increase from $8.85 to $10 an hour; thereafter, it will increase $1 an hour every January 1 until reaching $15 on January 1, 2024.

For seasonal workers and employees of small businesses (i.e., five or fewer workers), the ramp-up to $15 an hour would extend to 2026. For farmworkers, the base minimum wage would ...

For years, EBG’s free wage-hour app has put federal, state and local wage-laws at your fingertips.

One of the most significant developments in wage-hour law in recent years has been the implementation of new state and local minimum wages, many of which just went into effect on January 1, 2019.

EBG’s free wage-hour app includes those new 2019 minimum wages.

Downloading the app couldn’t be easier.

Available without charge for iPhone, iPad, and Android devices.

On January 15, 2019, the U.S. Supreme Court issued a unanimous decision in New Prime Inc. v. Oliveira, a case concerning the enforceability of arbitration agreements.

Petitioner New Prime Inc. (“New Prime”) is an interstate trucking company that engaged Dominic Oliveira to perform work as a driver pursuant to an “Independent Contractor Operating Agreement,” containing both an arbitration clause and a delegation clause giving the arbitrator authority to decide threshold questions of arbitrability.

Oliveira filed a putative class action against New Prime in federal ...

The Illinois State Legislature expanded the Illinois Wage Payment and Collection Act to include a new section (820 Illinois Compiled Statues 115/9.5) (“Amendment”) that now requires every Illinois employer to reimburse an employee for all “necessary expenditures or losses incurred by the employee within the employee’s scope of employment and directly related to services performed for the employer.” The Amendment became effective January 1, 2019.

“Necessary expenditures” include any reasonable expenses or losses that the employee incurs that primarily ...

On December 12, 2018, in Furry v. East Bay Publishing, LLC, the California Court of Appeal held that if an employer fails to keep accurate records of an employee’s work hours, even “imprecise evidence” by the employee “can provide a sufficient basis for damages.”

In the case, not only did the employer in Furry not keep accurate records of the employee’s time, but only the amount of damages, and not the fact of the underlying violation, was in dispute. Under those circumstances, the Court held that the employee’s “imprecise evidence” of the unpaid hours that he ...

True to its promise last year, the U.S. Department of Labor’s Wage and Hour Division (the “WHD”) continues to issue a steady stream of opinion letters designed to offer practical guidance to employers on specific wage and hour issues solicited by employers. This past week, the WHD issued two new opinion letters concerning the Fair Labor and Standards Act (“FLSA”), where one addresses an employer’s hourly pay methodology vis-à-vis the FLSA’s minimum wage requirement, and the other the ministerial exception to the FLSA. While not universally applicable, employers ...

Under the Fair Labor Standards Act (“FLSA”), employers can satisfy their minimum wage obligations to tipped employees by paying them a tipped wage of as low as $2.13 per hour, so long as the employees earn enough in tips to make up the difference between the tipped wage and the full minimum wage. (Other conditions apply that are not important here.) Back in 1988, the U.S. Department of Labor’s Wage and Hour Division amended its Field Operations Handbook, the agency’s internal guidance manual for investigators, to include a new requirement the agency sought to apply to ...

On July 26, 2018, the California Supreme Court issued its long-awaited opinion in Troester v. Starbucks Corporation, ostensibly clarifying the application of the widely adopted de minimis doctrine to California’s wage-hour laws. But while the Court rejected the application of the de minimis rule under the facts presented to it, the Court did not reject the doctrine outright. Instead, it left many questions unanswered.

And even while it rejected the application of the rule under the facts presented, it did not address a much larger question – whether the highly individualized ...

Our colleagues Susan Gross Sholinsky, Nancy Gunzenhauser Popper, and Eric I. Emanuelson, Jr.* at Epstein Becker Green have a post on the Retail Labor and Employment Law blog that will be of interest to our readers: "Massachusetts “Grand Bargain” Makes Changes to Blue Laws for Retailers."

Following is an excerpt:

A legislative bargain requires give-and-take from all stakeholders. On June 28, 2018, Massachusetts Governor Baker signed House Bill 4640, “An Act Relative to Minimum Wage, Paid Family Medical Leave, and the Sales Tax Holiday” (the “Act”). This ...

Last Friday, the Department of Labor (“DOL”) issued Field Assistance Bulletin No. 2018-4 to help guide the DOL Wage and Hour Division field staff as to the correct classification of home care, nurse, or caregiver registries under the Fair Labor Standards Act (“FLSA”). This is the most recent piece of guidance on a topic first addressed by the DOL in a 1975 Opinion Letter. The bulletin is noteworthy in two respects. First, it confirms that the DOL continues to view a registry that simply refers caregivers to clients but controls no terms or conditions of the caregiver’s ...

Voters in the District of Columbia on June 19, 2018 approved an initiative (Initiative 77) that would incrementally increase the minimum cash wage for tipped workers to $15.00 per hour by July 1, 2025, and starting July 1, 2026 to the same amount as the then-minimum wage for all other workers, effectively eliminating the tip credit. If the initiative takes effect, the District would join seven states that do not have a separate minimum wage for tipped workers, i.e., Alaska, California, Minnesota, Montana, Nevada, Oregon, and Washington.

The D.C. Council previously enacted ...

In most wage and hour cases, each workweek gives rise to a separate claim, at least for statute of limitations purposes. Thus, an employee seeking payment for alleged off-the-clock work or an independent contractor claiming misclassification and entitlement to overtime ordinarily may seek back wages and related recovery only for work performed within a set amount of time—usually two to six years preceding the filing of the complaint, depending on the jurisdiction—preceding the filing of the complaint. But what happens to the statute of limitations when a plaintiff tries to ...

More than 7 months after hearing oral argument on an issue that will affect countless employers across the country – whether employers may implement arbitration agreements with class action waivers -- the United States Supreme Court has issued what is bound to be considered a landmark decision in Epic Systems Corp. v. Lewis (a companion case to National Labor Relations Board v. Murphy Oil USA and Ernst & Young LLP v. Morris), approving the use of such agreements.

The decision will certainly have a tremendous impact upon pending wage-hour class and collective actions, many of which ...

On April 30, 2018, the California Supreme Court issued its long-awaited opinion in Dynamex Operations West, Inc. v. Superior Court, clarifying the standard for determining whether workers in California should be classified as employees or as independent contractors for purposes of the wage orders adopted by California’s Industrial Welfare Commission (“IWC”). In so doing, the Court held that there is a presumption that individuals are employees, and that an entity classifying an individual as an independent contractor bears the burden of establishing that such a ...

In 2012, we were proud to introduce our free wage and hour app.  Over the years, thousands of clients and potential clients have downloaded the app on their mobile phones and tablets.

For 2018, we are pleased to introduce a brand-new version of the app, available without charge for iPhone, iPad, and Android devices. See our press release here.

Importantly, the 2012 and 2014 versions of the app have been retired.  If you had downloaded them, you will need to download the new version.

The new version of the app includes wage-hour summaries for all 50 states, as well as D.C. and Puerto ...

On April 12, 2018, the Wage and Hour Division of the U.S. Department of Labor (“DOL”) issued the first Opinion Letters since the Bush administration, as well as a new Fact Sheet.  The Obama administration formally abandoned Opinion Letters in 2010, but Secretary of Labor Alexander Acosta has restored the practice of issuing these guidance documents.  Opinion Letters, as Secretary Acosta states in the DOL’s April 12 press release, are meant to explain “how an agency will apply the law to a particular set of facts,” with the goal of increasing employer compliance with the Fair ...

Featured on Employment Law This Week:  A California federal judge has ruled that a former GrubHub delivery driver was an independent contractor, not an employee.

The judge found that the company did not have the required control over its drivers for the plaintiff to establish that he is an employee. This decision comes as companies like Uber and Lyft are also facing lawsuits that accuse them of misclassifying employees as independent contractors. Carlos Becerra, from Epstein Becker Green, has more.

Watch the segment below and read our recent post.

Recently, a number of proposed class and collective action lawsuits have been filed on behalf of so-called “gig economy” workers, alleging that such workers have been misclassified as independent contractors. How these workers are classified is critical not only for workers seeking wage, injury and discrimination protections only available to employees, but also to employers desiring to avoid legal risks and costs conferred by employee status.  While a number of cases have been tried regarding other types of independent contractor arrangements (e.g., taxi drivers ...

Our colleagues Michael S. Kun, Jeffrey H. Ruzal, and Kevin Sullivan at Epstein Becker Green co-wrote a “Wage and Hour Self-Audits Checklist” for the Lexis Practice Advisor.

The checklist identifies the main risk categories for wage and hour self-audits. To avoid potentially significant liability for wage and hour violations, employers should consider wage and hour self-audits to identify and close compliance gaps.

Click here to download the Checklist in PDF format.  Learn more about the Lexis Practice Advisor.

This excerpt from Lexis Practice Advisor®, a comprehensive ...

As 2017 comes to a close, recent headlines have underscored the importance of compliance and training. In this Take 5, we review major workforce management issues in 2017, and their impact, and offer critical actions that employers should consider to minimize exposure:

1. Addressing Workplace Sexual Harassment in the Wake of #MeToo
2. A Busy 2017 Sets the Stage for Further Wage-Hour Developments
3. Your “Top Ten” Cybersecurity Vulnerabilities
4. 2017: The Year of the Comprehensive Paid Leave Laws
5. Efforts Continue to Strengthen Equal Pay Laws in 2017

In 2017, a great many states and localities passed laws increasing minimum wages beginning on January 1, 2018. (Some passed laws that will be effective on July 1, 2018 or other dates.)

Below is a summary of the minimum wage updates (and related tipped minimum wage requirements, where applicable) that go into effect on January 1, 2018, unless otherwise indicated.

As we have discussed previously, in early September the U.S. Department of Labor (“DOL”) withdrew its appeal of last November’s ruling from the Eastern District of Texas preliminarily enjoining the Department’s 2016 Final Rule that, among other things, more than doubled the minimum salary required to satisfy the Fair Labor Standards Act’s executive, administrative, and professional exemptions from $455 per week ($23,660 per year) to $913 per week ($47,476 per year).  The DOL abandoned its appeal in light of the district court’s ruling on August 31, 2017 granting ...

Our colleagues Patrick G. Brady and James J. Sawczyn, at Epstein Becker Green, have a post on the Retail Labor and Employment Law blog that will be of interest to many of our readers: “New Jersey’s Appellate Division Finds Part C of the “ABC” Independent Contractor Test Does Not Require an Independent Business”

Following is an excerpt:

In a potentially significant decision following the New Jersey Supreme Court’s ruling in Hargrove v. Sleepy’s, LLC, 220 N.J. 289 (2015), a New Jersey appellate panel held, in Garden State Fireworks, Inc. v. New Jersey Department of Labor ...

On October 14, 2017, California Governor Jerry Brown signed Assembly Bill 1701, which will make general contractors liable for their subcontractors’ employees’ unpaid wages if the subcontractor fails to pay wages due.  The new law will go into effect on January 1, 2018.

Specifically, section 218.7 has been added to the Labor Code. Subdivision (a)(1) provides the following:

For contracts entered into on or after January 1, 2018, a direct contractor making or taking a contract in the state for the erection, construction, alteration, or repair of a building, structure, or other ...

It is a common practice for employers to provide their employees with rest breaks during the work day.  (And in some states, like California, it is required by state law.) But under what circumstances is an employer required to pay its employees for break time?

In U.S. Department of Labor v. American Future Systems Inc. et al., the Third Circuit Court of Appeals was asked to decide whether the Fair Labor Standards Act requires employers to compensate employees for breaks of 20 minutes or less during which they are free from performing any work.

The employer in that case produced business ...

In many industries, sales are subject to ebbs and flows.  Sometimes the fish are biting; sometimes they aren’t.

A common device that employers with commissioned salespeople use to take the edge off of the slow weeks and to ensure compliance with minimum wage and overtime laws is the recoverable draw.  Under such a system, an employee who earns below a certain amount in commissions for a given period of time, often a week, receives an advance of as-yet unearned commissions to bring the employee’s earnings for the period up to a specified level.  Then in the next period, the employees’ ...

A year ago, employers across the country prepared for the implementation of a new overtime rule that would dramatically increase the salary threshold for white-collar exemptions, on the understanding that the new rule would soon go into effect “unless something dramatic happens,” a phrase we and others used repeatedly.

And, of course, something dramatic did happen—a preliminary injunction, followed by a lengthy appeal, which itself took more left turns following the U.S. presidential election than a driver in a NASCAR race. The effect was to put employers in a constant ...

On September 5, 2017, the Department of Labor filed with the Fifth Circuit an unopposed motion asking the court to dismiss its appeal of the nationwide preliminary injunction ruling issued last November by a Judge Amos Mazzant in the Eastern District of Texas.  The motion states that DOL’s appeal is moot in light of Judge Mazzant’s entry of final judgment on August 31, 2017.  Barring any unusual further developments, we anticipate that the Fifth Circuit will dismiss the appeal promptly.

By withdrawing the appeal, the Department is signaling that it intends to abandon the 2016 Final ...

In Moon et al v. Breathless, Inc., the Third Circuit reviewed the dismissal of a class and collective action under the Fair Labor Standards Act, the New Jersey Wage and Hour Law and the New Jersey Wage Payment Law.  The District Court for the District of New Jersey had dismissed the named plaintiff’s claims based on an arbitration clause in the written agreement between the her and Breathless, the club where she worked as a dancer.

In her lawsuit, the plaintiff alleged that she and other dancers were misclassified as independent contractors, and that Breathless unlawfully failed to pay ...

When an employer pays the minimum wage (or more) instead of taking the tip credit, who owns any tips – the employer or the employee? In Marlow v. The New Food Guy, Inc., No. 16-1134 (10^th Cir. June 30, 2017), the United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit held they belong to the employer, who presumably can then either keep them or distribute them in whole or part to employees as it sees fit. This directly conflicts with the Ninth Circuit’s decision last year in Oregon Restaurant and Lodging Ass’n v. Perez, 816 F.3d 1080, 1086-89 (9^th Cir. 2016), pet for cert. filed, No. 16-920 ...

Not all new laws go into effect on the first of the year. On July 1, 2017, new minimum wage laws went into effect in several locales in California. Specifically:

• Emeryville: $15.20/hour for businesses with 56 or more employees; $14/hour for businesses with 55 or fewer employees.
• City of Los Angeles: $12/hour for employers with 26 or more employees; $10.50 an hour for employers with 25 or fewer employees.
• Los Angeles County (unincorporated areas only): $12/hour for employers with 26 or more employees; $10.50 an hour for employers with 25 or fewer employees.
• Malibu: $12/hour for ...

In a move likely to impact employers in a variety of industries, U.S. Secretary of Labor Alexander Acosta announced on June 7, 2017 that the Department of Labor has withdrawn the Administrator’s Interpretations (“AIs”) on independent contractor status and joint employment, which had been issued in 2015 and 2016, respectively, during the tenure of former President Barack Obama.

The DOL advised that the withdrawal of the two AIs “does not change the legal responsibilities of employers under the Fair Labor Standards Act . . . , as reflected in the department’s long-standing ...