Wage and Hour Defense Blog

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 ...

As employers continue to deal with workplace issues related to COVID-19, you should be aware that the U.S. Department of Labor’s Wage and Hour Division (“WHD”) has indicated that it will be investigating allegations of wage and hour violations that have occurred as a result of the rapid workforce changes undertaken by many organizations earlier this year.   Unfortunately, as you may know, the WHD rarely announces those investigations in advance and, instead, employers typically learn of them when a letter arrives announcing 72 hours’ notice to produce payroll records, or a ...

As we wrote about in more detail here, the ongoing coronavirus pandemic has brought increased attention to the legal and practical distinctions between employees (who are entitled to various compensation and employment benefits under the law) and independent contractors (who generally are not).  The pandemic has also prompted lawmakers at the federal, state, and local level to explore further legislation designed to provide independent contractors with greater protections under the law.

The Seattle City Council has now passed two ordinances—the “Gig Worker Premium Pay ...

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 ...

Our colleague Jonathan Assia at Epstein Becker Green had recently published a post on the Workforce Bulletin blog that will be of interest to our readers: “Class Action Mooted When Class Representative Settles, Ninth Circuit Rules.”

Following is an excerpt:

On June 3, 2020, the Ninth Circuit dismissed a wage and hour class action on the grounds that once the class representative plaintiff settled his individual claims and no longer had any financial stake in the litigation’s outcome, the entire litigation was moot.

In Brady v. AutoZone Stores, Inc. and Autozoners, LLC ...

Faced with the question of whether unionized employees and their employer can bargain away the right to be compensated for employer-mandated travel time, a California Court of Appeal has ruled that they in fact may not do so.  In Carlos Gutierrez v. Brand Energy Services of California, Inc., the Court concluded that Wage Order 16 (Cal. Code Regs., tit. 8, § 11160) requires that employees be paid for all employer-mandated travel time — and that it cannot be negotiated away by a union and the employer.

The plaintiff in the case was a journeyman scaffold worker at gasoline refineries. He and ...

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 ...

During the Covid-19 pandemic, companies should focus in the first instance on health and safety issues for workers, customers, and the public at large during a pandemic, but they cannot lose sight of the wage and hour risks that are lurking in these challenging times.

For a staggering number of U.S. businesses over the past several weeks, the early and middle part of 2020 will look something like this:

Reduced customer demand or government-ordered site closures lead to furloughs or layoffs of a significant part of the workforce. Where feasible, employees work from home. As local ...