Wage and Hour Defense Blog

Workday breaks can go a long way to reduce employees’ stress and fatigue on the job while also improving overall job satisfaction and productivity. It important for New York State employers and employees to familiarize themselves with the legal requirements of workplace breaks. This tip offers an overview of New York State workplace meal and rest period laws and provides guidance on how to remain in compliance.

Meal Periods

Meal Period Requirements

Generally, New York law requires employers to provide a meal break. Section 162 of the New York State Labor Law establishes the ...

Washington, D.C. is poised to extend the reach of its minimum wage requirements. On January 10, 2024, Washington D.C. Mayor Bowser signed the Minimum Wage Clarification Amendment Act of 2023 (B25-0134) (the “Amendment”), which modifies the circumstances under which an employee must be paid the District of Columbia’s minimum wage.

Traditionally, D.C.’s wage and hour law has required employers to pay employees at least the D.C. minimum wage when they (i) perform more than 50% of their work in the District, or (ii) the employee is based in D.C., and “regularly spends a ...

More than a decade ago, Epstein Becker Green (EBG) created its complimentary wage-hour app, putting federal, state, and local wage-hour laws at employers’ fingertips.

The app provides important information about overtime, overtime exemptions, minimum wages, meal periods, rest periods, on-call time, and travel time, as well as tips that employers can use to remain compliant with the law and, hopefully, avoid class action, representative action, and collective action lawsuits and government investigations. 

As the laws have changed over the years, so too has EBG’s free ...

On January 31, 2024, a Massachusetts trial court dismissed a claim against the Boston Globe alleging that the newspaper violated the commonwealth’s Wage Act by failing to pay an executive’s 2020 profit-share which the executive labeled a “commission.”  The court concluded that the percentage of the Globe’s profits that the executive may be owed under his compensation plan is not a percentage of revenue he personally generated and as a result is not a “commission” under the Wage Act.

Vinay Mehra, the Globe’s President from 2017 until his June 2020 termination, filed ...

Despite Punxsutawney Phil declaring an early spring, employers should continue to prepare for weather-related emergencies and their wage and hour implications.  As with most of wage and hour-related determinations, employers should be mindful of the distinctions between their exempt and non-exempt workforce when assessing their obligations under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), and state and local laws, to pay employees as a result of weather-related emergencies.

Salaried Exempt Employees

Under the FLSA, employers may not deduct from the salary of an employee classified ...

On January 9, 2024, the United States Department of Labor’s (DOL) Wage and Hour Division (WHD) announced a final rule regarding how to determine whether a worker qualifies as an employee or may be considered an independent contractor under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA).  Designed to combat misclassification, the final rule rescinds DOL’s Trump-era Independent Contractor Rule issued in January 2021 and restores the non-exhaustive six-factor test courts have long used to evaluate whether or not independent contractors were properly classified.  The test considers:

Here’s a question you likely have never considered: Are hackers overseas infiltrating employers’ computer systems just to sign arbitration agreements with class action waivers for random employees?

While there is no evidence that this has ever happened anywhere, and no logical reason why it would, plaintiffs’ lawyers and even some courts seem to believe this could happen. And that is at the heart of the latest battleground over arbitration agreements with class actions waivers.

Since the United States Supreme Court’s decision in Epic Systems v. Lewis, more and more ...

On January 17, 2024, the Appellate Division of the New York Supreme Court for the Second Department held in Grant v. Global Aircraft Dispatch, Inc. that no private right of action exists for a violation of New York Labor Law (“NYLL”) Section 191, the frequency of payment provision that dictates how often New York employers must pay certain types of employees. The decision in Grant creates a departmental split with a previous decision issued by the First Appellate Department over whether a private right of action exists under the NYLL and arrives on the heels of Governor Hochul’s ...

On January 18, 2024, the California Supreme Court issued its much-anticipated decision in Estrada v. Royalty Carpet Mills, resolving a dispute among the appellate courts and concluding that Private Attorneys General Act (“PAGA”) claims may not be stricken as unmanageable. 

While some have read the decision as a resounding victory for the plaintiffs’ bar that will force every PAGA case to settle for large amounts, the decision does no such thing.

It may challenge employers and their lawyers to be more creative, but it does not mean that every PAGA action now warrants an outsized ...

With the new year comes raises in minimum wages, yet again.  As reflected in the charts below, in 2024, minimum wage and, in applicable jurisdictions, tipped minimum wage will increase in 23 states and in a number of counties and cities.

Accordingly, employers with minimum wage workers (or tipped minimum wage workers) should consult with counsel to ensure that their compensation practices are compliant with the laws in all of the jurisdictions in which they operate.