Last week, the U.S. Department of Labor announced a settlement with Hilton Reservations Worldwide, LLC, in which the company agreed to pay $715,507 in minimum wages and overtime pay to 2,645 current and former customer service employees in Texas, Florida, Illinois and Pennsylvania. The DOL determined after an audit that the company failed to pay
Wage & Hour Issues in the Cleaning and Maintenance Industry
Check out my article in the October 2011 issue of Cleaning & Maintenance Management. While focused on the cleaning and maintenance industry, the issues highlighted in the article are generally applicable to a wide range employers.
Here’s the link: Are You Due for a Wage and Hour Checkup?
The U.S. Department of Labor
What Do You Mean the Job May No Longer Be Considered Exempt?
My last blog entry on travel time only touched on one issue that may arise as we see more employees being asked to take on additional responsibilities and assignments in lieu of hiring new personnel. Indeed, consolidation of jobs or responsibilities can lead to a number of other potential wage and hour issues that can
Exempt Employees, Paid Leave, and Partial Day Absences [Webinar Q&A]
Another in our series of answers to questions from our September 28 webinar on wage and hour law in higher education:
Q. If an exempt employee only works a half day, i.e. they go home sick at noon, and they have both sick and vacation leave available, can we require that they use four
Employee Volunteers and Emergency Call-Ins [Webinar Q&A]
Another in our series of answers to questions from our September 28 webinar on wage and hour law in higher education:
Q. What if a non-exempt employee truly volunteers his/her time on a weekend to participate in a campus clean-up program (non-exempt duties) or a ticket taker at homecoming? Are these hours non-compensable? Similar
Court: Cable Installers Employees, Not Independent Contractors
A couple of weeks ago, I wrote about an initiative by the U.S. Department of Labor, IRS and various state agencies to launch a coordinated crack-down on employers who misclassify employees as independent contractors. Recently, a U.S. District Court in Ohio issued a ruling that nicely illustrates the problem of misclassifcation and the potential liabilities
Wage & Hour Law On Campus – Your Webinar Questions Answered
Last Wednesday, my partner Ed Druck and I hosted a webinar on wage and hour law for colleges and universities. (For those who missed it, you can check out the recording.) We had a great turnout and a wonderfully responsive audience. We were thrilled to receive nearly 50 questions, but could only get to a handful of them during the webinar. Over the next several weeks, we will try to answer a number of them here on the blog. If we don’t get to yours, please feel free to contact me or Ed.
For those of you outside the realm of higher education, worry not: this will be worthwhile reading for you too, as the issues raised by our webinar audience apply to a wide range of employers.
To kick off the Q&A, let’s start with a question we got from several of you about on-call time:
Q. Our Resident Advisors are treated as employees and paid through the payroll. During certain hours they are required to be accessible by phone, but not necessarily in their rooms. From midnight to 8:00 a.m., they are required to be in the dorm and available to maintain order or respond to calls from students. However, most of this time is spent on personal activities or sleeping. Do we have to pay for this time? If so, can we pay a lower “on call” rate of say $1 per hour?Continue Reading Wage & Hour Law On Campus – Your Webinar Questions Answered
Do Employers Have to Pay for Travel Time?
In this economy, we continue to see lay-offs and slow growth in hiring. As a result, more employees are being asked to take on additional responsibilities and assignments. These circumstances, coupled with the fact that some employers are properly re-classifying certain jobs as non-exempt, have led to an increase in work-related travel for non-exempt employees.