Wage and Hour Defense Blog

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 ...

Joining California and New York, New Jersey has become the third state with a phased-in $15 minimum wage requirement for most employees. On February 4, 2019, Governor Phil Murphy signed into law A15 (“Law”), which raises the state minimum wage rate for employers with six or more employees to $10.00 per hour on July 1, 2019, and then to $11.00 per hour on January 1, 2020. Thereafter, the minimum wage will increase annually on January 1 by $1.00 per hour until it reaches $15.00 per hour on January 1, 2024. The minimum wage hike will phase in at a slower rate for employers with five or ...

The Third Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that a federal statute that governs interstate trucking does not preempt the application New Jersey’s ABC test for distinguishing between employees and independent contractors.

In Bedoya v. American Eagle Express Inc., New Jersey-based delivery drivers for AEX alleged that the company misclassified them as independent contractors rather than employees in violation of the New Jersey Wage and Hour Law and the New Jersey Wage Payment Law. AEX moved to dismiss the drivers’ claims as preempted by the Federal Aviation Administration ...

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 February 1, 2019, the U.S. Department of Labor publicly designated Keith Sonderling as Acting Administrator of the Wage and Hour Division (“WHD”).  He joined WHD in September 2017 as a Senior Policy Advisor, receiving a promotion to Deputy Administrator last month.  Before joining the Department, he was a shareholder in the Gunster law firm in West Palm Beach, Florida, where he represented businesses in labor and employment matters.

During his time with WHD, Sonderling has been a strong proponent of the agency’s Payroll Audit Independent Determination program (known as ...

On January 24, 2019, Governor Cuomo’s office issued a press release announcing a new proposal to be included in the 2020 Executive Budget aimed at cracking down on wage theft and bolstering the State’s efforts to hold accountable employers who attempt to improperly withhold wages. This proposal would increase the criminal penalties for employers who either knowingly or intentionally commit wage theft violations to bring them in line with other forms of theft.

Presently, only employers who commit repeated wage theft can be prosecuted with a felony. The proposed legislation ...

In Bernstein v. Virgin America, Inc., a district court in California has ordered Virgin America to pay more than $77,000,000 in damages, restitution, interest and penalties for a variety of violations of the California Labor Code. The award is the latest example of the tremendous amount of damages and penalties that can be awarded for non-compliance with California’s complex wage and hour laws.

In 2016, the Bernstein Court granted the plaintiffs’ motion for class certification, certifying a class of California-based flight attendants who had been employed since March 2011.

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.