Wage and Hour Defense Blog

Please join David Barron, Jay P. Krupin, and other attorneys from EpsteinBeckerGreen as we present eight panels covering labor and employment topics that have increasingly impacted employers in the health care industry.

Our first panel, entitled Significant Labor and Employment Issues that Affect Health Entities, will include representatives from the health care industry, such as a hospitals, skilled nursing facilities, and emergency medical services. These executive panelists will discuss the critical labor and employment issues they are currently experiencing and ...

By Douglas Weiner and Charles H. Wilson

In a recently reported case from the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals, Applebee’s servers and bartenders alleged they spent a “substantial” amount of time performing non-tipped work, such as cleaning and maintenance, and, therefore, should be paid the minimum wage of $7.25 for the time spent performing non-tipped work, rather than the direct wage of $2.13 the FLSA allows employers to pay employees in tipped occupations See 29 U.S.C. § 203(m) and 29 U.S.C. § 203(t).

Applebee’s argued it properly applied a tip credit to the servers and ...

by Suzanne K. Brown

On August 23, 2004, the U.S. Department of Labor overhauled the Federal overtime exemption regulations with amendments that included elimination of the former “long” and “short” tests for exemption (the application of one or the other being determined by the employee’s salary level), in favor of a single, streamlined duties test for each category of exemption, including executive, administrative, professional and outside sales employees. Since that time, New Jersey’s overtime exemption regulations, which were modeled on the Federal ...

By Michael Kun

Employers who do business in California are already well aware of the wage-hour class actions that have besieged employers in virtually every industry.   Class claims for misclassification of employees as exempt employees or independent contractors first began to be filed more than a decade ago, and continue to be filed on a daily basis.  Claims for alleged work off-the-clock and missed meal and rest periods by non-exempt employees generally began later, but continue to be filed at an alarming rate.

Now we can add to those cases a new wave of California class actions ...

by Kara Maciel

Once again, the U.S. Department of Labor is requesting additional funding from Congress in its 2012 budget proposal to increase its efforts toward regulation and enforcement of wage and hour and employment laws.  While the DOL’s budget proposal would reduce its overall discretionary spending by 5%, the budget cuts will not affect the staff and resources that enforce wage and hour laws.  Instead, the Wage and Hour Division is asking for $241 million – an increase of $13.3 million from last year’s estimated budget. 

In particular, the Wage and Hour Division is seeking ...

By Michael S. Kun, David W. Garland, Douglas Weiner

The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals has become the latest Circuit Court to weigh in on the subject of whether pharmaceutical sales representatives are covered by the FLSA outside sales exemption.  The result, in Christopher v. SmithKline Beecham, No. 10-15257 (9^th Cir. Feb. 14, 2011), is a resounding victory for employers in the pharmaceutical industry.

The plaintiffs and the Secretary of Labor argued, among other things, that sales representatives in fact do not make sales at all, which places them outside the bounds of the outside ...

EBG colleague Susan Gross Sholinsky recently prepared an Act Now Advisory discussing New York State’s December 21, 2010 opinion letter regarding whether an internship will qualify for an exception to applicable minimum wage rules. The New York State Department of Labor utilizes the United States Department of Labor’s six-step test, but adds an additional five factors to determine whether the internship will be exempt from minimum wage rules. In order to qualify for the exemption, the following eleven factors must be satisfied:

1. The training, even though it includes ...

By: Kara Maciel

Following up on our previous blog posting from November 2, 2010, on December 16, 2010, the New York State Department of Labor issued a new minimum wage order (the “Order”) which will bring immediate changes to the restaurant and hotel industries. Under the Order, employees will be due a higher minimum wage and subject to new tip pooling rules. Meanwhile, employers will need to comply with more stringent recordkeeping requirements. Although employers have until February 28, 2011, to adjust their payrolls, they will still owe their employees back pay as of ...

The United States District Court for the Northern District of California has denied certification of a class action against Joe's Crab Shack restaurants on claims that employees worked off-the-clock, were denied meal and rest breaks, and were required to purchase t-shirts to wear at work.  Because the case was handled by our EpsteinBeckerGreen colleagues Michael Kun and Aaron Olsen, we do not believe it is appropriate to comment on the decision or its implications.  If you would like to read the decision, a copy may be found here.

By Michael Kun and Doug Weiner

It is no secret that employers have been beseiged by wage-hour litigation, including wage-hour class actions and collective actions. It is also no secret that the persons who benefit most from these actions are often plaintiffs' counsel, who frequently receive one-third or more of any recovery. Now, as a result of an unprecedented new program initiated by the the Department of Labor's Wage and Hour Division ("WHD"), the WHD will be practically delivering potential plaintiffs to the doors of plaintiffs' counsel -- and the WHD has invited plaintiffs ...