Last week, the Supreme Court granted a writ of certiorari to Tyson Foods in an appeal of a class and collective action filed under the FLSA and a similar Iowa state law. Hourly workers at Tyson’s Storm Lake, Iowa pork processing plant filed a lawsuit claiming unpaid overtime for time spent donning and doffing personal
Determining When a Commission is “Earned” When Calculating the Regular Rate
In our last post, we discussed the calculation of the “regular rate” and some of the complexities of determining what constitutes “remuneration” under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA). Commission is one of the additional forms of compensation that you must include in a non-exempt employee’s regular rate. Such a calculation is relatively straightforward
Even for Hourly Workers, Calculating the “Regular Rate” Can Be Complex
No matter if you are new to the wage and hour world and this blog, you still probably know that employers need to pay their non-exempt employees an overtime premium for all hours worked in a workweek beyond 40, pursuant to the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) and applicable state law. Whatever overtime rate you
Department of Labor Seeks Information about Employees’ Use of Smartphones
The Obama Administration used the occasion of Memorial Day weekend to release its required Semiannual Regulatory Agenda. The Agenda, which is not binding on the DOL, lists a number of items including two specifically related to the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA). One of them is the “white collar” overtime exemption rules that we
Moving Exempt Employees to Non-Exempt Status [Wage & Hour FAQs]
We discuss the misclassification of non-exempt employees regularly here on the blog and in our presentations at conferences and webinars, but a reader of the blog wrote me before the holiday weekend to ask about the reverse situation. The reader’s company has previously determined (correctly, we’ll assume) that some of its employees meet the “computer
Supreme Court Declines to Hear Severance Agreement FLSA Collective Action Waiver Case
The Supreme Court has declined to grant review of a Sixth Circuit decision that cast significant doubt on the effectiveness of an employee’s waiver of Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) collective action rights. Last summer, the Sixth Circuit became the first federal appellate court to address an employee’s waiver of rights to participate in a
Second Circuit Extends FLSA Anti-Retaliation Provision to More Oral Complaints
On April 20, the Second Circuit filled a gap left open by the Supreme Court by extending the Fair Labor Standards Act’s (FLSA) anti-retaliation provisions to oral complaints made to an employer (rather than just complaints made to a government agency). In Greathouse v. JHS Security, Inc., the appeals court cited both Supreme Court
DOL Sends New FLSA Regulations to OIRA for Final Review Before Draft Publication
Since last spring, we have been following developments in the oft-delayed Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) regulations rewrite by the Department of Labor (DOL). Yesterday, we received word that the DOL has completed a draft of the new regulations and sent them to the Office of Management and Budget’s Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs
Wage and Hour Basics Series: Penalties for FLSA Non-Compliance
Periodically this year, we have discussed some of the fundamentals of wage and hour law, starting with a general review of the white collar exemptions. We will continue to periodically review some of the more fundamental concepts of the FLSA, including a comprehensive review of the new FLSA exemption rules that we expect the
Department of Labor Says “Transparent Government” Begins With…Transparent Data about Businesses?
We’ve reached almost the end of April, and the long delayed, new FLSA regulations are still percolating somewhere in deep inside the DOL. So what has the agency been up to instead? Last month, as part of the annual “Sunshine Week” spotlighting the importance of open government, freedom of information, and the public’s right to