Wage and Hour Defense Blog

Over the past five years, ten states and several local jurisdictions across the country have passed wage transparency laws in an effort to address gender and racial wage disparities.  Wage transparency laws may apply to wage range disclosures and promotional opportunities in job advertisements, among current employees and job applicants.  In this changing landscape, employers must be diligent in order to comply with these laws, given their variety with respect to who must receive disclosures, which factual circumstances trigger disclosure requirements, and what information ...

Misclassifying workers as independent contractors rather than employees is a costly mistake.  Among the many issues arising from misclassification is potential liability under federal and state minimum wage and overtime laws.  As the laws continue to change and develop, so do the risks to contracting entities.

Federal Changes

Connecticut appears poised to become the next state to raise its minimum wage to $15 per hour, following the trend set by California, Illinois, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, and most recently Maryland, in addition to numerous local jurisdictions.  Governor Ed Lamont is expected to sign H.B. 5004, which passed the state’s House and Senate earlier this month.

Under the bill, the state’s current minimum wage of $10.10 will increase to $11 on October 1, 2019. From there, it will increase one dollar every eleven months until it reaches $15 on June 1, 2023. Thereafter, increases ...

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 ...

By Stuart Gerson

Wage-hour lawsuits filed under the federal Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) represent one of the fastest growing and most problematic areas of litigation facing employers today, especially when such cases are brought as collective actions. A recent Supreme Court case based in class action analysis provides a potentially-useful analog for employers to stave off such collective actions.

Class action criteria are set forth in Fed. R. Civ. P. 23, and they allow for one or more individual named plaintiffs to sue on behalf of a large – sometimes very large – group of ...