On August 23, 2024, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals struck down a 2021 regulation by the U.S. Department of Labor restricting employers’ use of the tip credit for tipped employees under the Fair Labor Standards Act. The ruling effectively does away with the DOL’s longstanding “80-20” rule.
The case is Restaurant Law Center
Many employers make the mistake of assuming that employees can be treated as exempt so long as they have certain job titles or are paid a salary rather than an hourly wage. That error is especially common in small businesses like restaurants. It can be an expensive mistake, as one D.C. restaurant recently learned after
After a federal judge in the Eastern District of Texas blocked the DOL’s new overtime exemption rule as it pertains to Texas state employees, another judge in the Northern District of Texas declined to issue a similar injunction in a challenge brought by tech company Flint Avenue, LLC. Without addressing the merits of the
On Friday, a federal district court granted a preliminary injunction sought by the State of Texas to block implementation of the U.S. Department of Labor’s new rule increasing minimum salaries for overtime exempt employee. However, the court limited the effect of its injunction to the State of Texas as an employer.
The court concluded that
With the DOL’s new overtime exemption rule set to go into effect on July 1 and no ruling yet on the state of Texas’s motion to put the rule on hold, employers will need to decide what to do with exempt employees whose minimum salary falls below the new threshold.
For some employees, the best
UPDATE June 27, 2024: As of this morning, the court has yet to rule on the pending motion to block implementation of the DOL’s new overtime rule. Yesterday, the DOL filed a “notice of supplemental authority,” suggesting that the district court should follow the Supreme Court’s decision yesterday in Murthy v. Missouri by holding that
A common question for schools assessing how to comply with the new overtime exemption rule published by the U.S. DOL is what to do about coaches and athletic trainers in light of the new minimum salary requirement for the executive, administrative and professional exemptions.
For coaches, two exemptions may still apply even if the coach’s salary falls below the new thresholds of $884 per week (starting July 1, 2024) or $1,128 per week (starting January 1, 2025). A coach whose primary job duties are instructing student athletes on topics such as athletic performance, physical health, team concepts, and safety, or designing instructional programs for student athletes or the team as a whole, may qualify for the teaching exemption. Employees who fall under the teaching exemption do not have to be paid on a salary basis or meet the minimum salary level under the regulations.Continue Reading Coaches and Athletic Trainers Under the New FLSA Exemption Rules
The U.S. Department of Labor recently published new final regulations that increase the minimum salary level for most employees to be considered exempt under the executive, administrative, and professional exemptions to the Fair Labor Standards Act. While these new rules could affect some 4 million workers, not all exempt employees are subject to the minimum salary requirement.Continue Reading Not All Exempt Employees Are Affected by the New Minimum Salary Rule
On April 23, 2024, the U.S. Department of Labor issued final regulations updating the minimum salary threshold for employees to be considered exempt from overtime requirements under the Fair Labor Standards Act. The regulations are scheduled to be published in the Federal Register on April 26, 2024. The new rules increase the minimum salary from the current level of $684 per week (about $35,568 per year) to $844 per week (about $43,888 per year) effective July 1, 2024, and $1,128 per week (about $58,656 per year) effective January 1, 2025. According to the final rule, $844 per week is the “20th percentile for weekly earnings of full-time nonhourly workers in the lowest-wage Census Region and/or retail industry nationally,” and $1,128 per week is the 35th percentile. Beginning July 1, 2027 and every three years thereafter, the salary level would be readjusted to reflect updated earnings data. Continue Reading U.S. DOL Updates Salary Thresholds for Overtime Exemptions
In April, the Illinois Department of Labor published new regulations regarding the expense reimbursement requirements in Section 9.5 of the Illinois Wage Payment and Collection Act. The Act requires an employer to reimburse an employee for “all necessary expenditures or losses incurred by the employee within the employee’s scope of employment and directly related to services performed by the employer.” It defines “necessary expenditures” as “all reasonable expenditures or losses required of the employee in the discharge of employment duties that inure to the primary benefit of the employer.” Continue Reading New Reimbursement Rules for Illinois Employers