Photo of Bill Pokorny

Bill Pokorny

Subscribe to Bill Pokorny's Posts

Bill is a partner at Franczek P.C. As co-chair of the firm’s Labor and Employment Practice Group, Bill is particularly versed in all aspects of state and federal law relating to minimum wages, overtime, exemptions, and wage payment issues. Bill also regularly counsels employers on issues relating to the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA), disability and accommodations. Bill provides management and employee training on workplace legal issues, and also conducts workplace investigations and legal audits. Bill also has extensive litigation experience, representing employers in federal and state courts and administrative agencies such as the U.S. and Illinois Departments of Labor and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. In 2014, Bill was named to the annual "40 Under 40" published by Law Bulletin Publishing which recognizes 40 attorneys under the age of 40 based on nominations by their clients, peers and the legal community.

Follow:Read more about Bill PokornyWilliam's Linkedin ProfileWilliam's Twitter Profile

Call center operatorLast 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…

TV cablesA 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…

University signLast 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

Audit stampEarlier this week, the U.S. Department of Labor held a ceremony at which Secretary of Labor Hilda Solis signed a memorandum of understanding with the Internal Revenue Service to “improve departmental efforts to end the business practice of misclassifying employees in order to avoid providing employment protections.” The DOL also signed or has agreed to…