Wage and Hour Defense Blog

In an increasingly cashless society, many employers are considering moving to payroll debit cards to provide workers with greater flexibility and convenience. However, employers considering offering payroll debit cards should be aware of a number of potential pitfalls associated with the technology, ensuring that their payroll debit card plan is compliant with relevant state laws.

Why Use a Payroll Debit Card?

There a number of benefits associated with payroll debit cards both for employers and employees. Employers can benefit from payroll debit cards by avoiding the cost of printing and mailing paychecks for all participating employees. Payroll debit cards are helpful for employees who do not have bank accounts and wish to avoid check cashing fees or other fees associated with maintaining a bank account. Additionally, payroll debit cards may provide a nimbler mechanism for employers who desire to offer a more flexible pay period option for employees, such as daily or instant pay.

The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that in determining exemption from the Federal Arbitration Act (“FAA”) for “workers engaged in foreign or interstate commerce” — commonly referred to as the “transportation worker” exemption—courts must focus on workers’ job duties rather than the industry in which they work. Bissonnette v. LePage Bakeries Park St., LLC. The ruling overturns a Second Circuit decision that held that the workers arguing exemption from the FAA did not qualify as transportation workers because they did not work in the transportation industry. The ...

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 ...

A Maine dairy company has received a potentially expensive grammar lesson from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit, which held on March 13, 2017, that the company’s delivery drivers may be eligible for up to $10 million in overtime pay, because the lack of a comma in the statute regarding exemptions from the state’s wage and hour law rendered the scope of the exemption ambiguous.

Grammarians have long disputed whether writers should include a comma before the final item in a list—the so-called “serial” or “Oxford” comma.  Opponents of the serial comma consider ...

On October 15, 2015, Epstein Becker Green hosted its 34th Annual Workforce Management Briefing, which featured senior officials from the U.S. Department of Labor and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.  This year's briefing boasted a record setting attendance, including industry leaders, general counsel and senior human resources professionals, many of whom attended the briefing workshop, Wage and Hour Compliance: You Are Not Exempt.

The Wage and Hour workshop featured three of Epstein Becker Green's wage and hour practice attorneys -- Michael Kun, Patrick Brady and ...

by Michael Kun

We heard you loud and clear.  You’d like our EBG wage-hour app, currently available for use on Apple products, to be available on Android devices, too.

Consider it done.  Or, more accurately, almost done.

The Android version of the EBG wage-hour app will be available for download in early 2014.

And, yes, it will be free.

Look for more details here.

In the meantime, if you do not have an Apple device, PDF versions of our federal and state wage-hour guides, as well as other materials, remain available on our webpage.