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Q. Has the salary threshold increased for exempt status under the Fair Labor Standards Act?

A. On September 24 — more than five years after the Obama administration first proposed updating the overtime regulations of the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) — the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) released the final version of its long-anticipated…

Q.  I suspect that our company may have inadvertently committed overtime and minimum wage violations. Is there a way I can make this right without incurring substantial legal liability?

A.  Possibly. Earlier this year, the United States Department of Labor (DOL) Wage and Hour Division announced the creation of a new nationwide pilot program called the Payroll Audit Independent Determination (PAID) program. In short, the PAID program encourages employers to conduct payroll self-audits and, if they discover overtime or minimum wage violations, self-report those violations to the DOL and work with the DOL to rectify the problem and ensure employees are paid any wages owed.
Continue Reading PAID Program Provides a Way to Resolve Overtime and Minimum Wage Violations

Do you do business with the federal government?  If you do, you (hopefully!) know that keeping up with the rules and regulations of being a federal contractor are no easy task.  But we are here to help!

Lawyers at our firm, including HRLawMatters contributor Jim McCabe, have written an incredibly helpful article to help federal contractor employers comply with recent changes to their obligations. This article was recently published on the DirectEmployers Association website – and you can see it at this link here. 
Continue Reading Federal Contractors Must Read This!

The U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) announced the final version of their long-awaited overtime exemption rule today, which makes notable changes to the requirements for employees to qualify under the Fair Labor Standards Act’s (FLSA) “white collar” exemption. The most noteworthy change is an increase in the required salary level for exempt employees to $47,476 per year, but there are other important changes as well.

The rule first surfaced nearly a year ago in June 2015 and it has been a concern of all employers since then. The stated goal of the rule is to expand federal overtime regulations so that more than 4 million more workers will likely be entitled to overtime.
Continue Reading Changes to the FLSA’s White Collar Exemptions Are Finally Here! Higher Salaries and More Overtime, Here We Come.

A few years ago, the New York Times ran an article about investigations into the legality of unpaid internships at for-profit businesses, explaining that such investigations were being conducted by the U.S. Department of Labor, as well as by the labor departments of several states, including California, Oregon, and New York.

At that time, many practitioners expected that there would be a tidal wave of class action lawsuits brought by former unpaid interns but, surprisingly, that wave did not come…until now. 
Continue Reading Are Your Unpaid Interns Going To Rebel?

We have all heard the phrase “I’m from the government and I’m here to help.”  There are many different reactions to that phrase:  some are appreciative, some are cynical, and some are not appropriate to be repeated in this blog.  One recent effort to help by our federal government is sure to receive those varied reactions – and is also certain to bolster lawsuits against employers that are not meticulous about recording their employees’ hours and correctly paying their wages. 
Continue Reading Want To Be Sued For Wage & Hour Violations? Yes, There’s An App For That Too.