Late yesterday the White House and Department of Labor released key details of the new FLSA overtime exemption rules for white collar workers. The final rules themselves have just been released this morning. We are still digesting 500-plus page
Bloomberg BNA is reporting (subscription required) that according to a “source familiar with the situation,” the DOL’s new overtime exemption rules will take effect on December 1. The new minimum salary for exempt executive, administrative and professional employees will be $913 per week or $47,476 per year. That’s still more than double the current $455
Rumors abound this afternoon that the DOL will release its new overtime exemption rules this Wednesday, May 18, in coordination with an event in Ohio attended by VP Joe Biden and Labor Secretary Thomas Perez. What will the new minimum salary be? Will it be indexed to inflation or some other measure? Will the duties
As employers try to figure out how to cope with the coming increase in the minimum salary for the executive, administrative and professional employees, some find themselves with job classifications where the salary scale straddles the new line between exempt and non-exempt. Can employers in this situation categorize employees whose compensation falls below the line as non-exempt, while treating those with the same job title but with higher salaries as exempt?
In theory, sure. But it could get complicated.Continue Reading Can We Have Both Exempt and Non-Exempt Employees With The Same Job Title?
No.
I’ve received this question from several blog readers and clients recently, and on its face it makes some sense. After all, you don’t pay full salary to someone who is only working for you part-time, so it only makes sense that the minimum salary for the executive, administrative and professional exemptions under the FLSA should also be pro-rated based on how many hours an employee works. Right?
Well, not so much.Continue Reading Will The New Minimum Salary Be Pro-Rated for Part-Time Exempt Employees?
According to a report from Bloomberg BNA, unnamed DOL staffers have stated that the salary threshold in the hotly anticipated FLSA exemption rules will be about $47,000 per year, down slightly from the $50,440 level suggested by the proposed rules published last summer. This is not an official announcement, so while the statement may well
When sexual harassment lawsuits started becoming a major liability issue for employers, many employers sensibly responded by requiring their supervisory employees to go through mandatory anti-harassment training. There is at least some data to suggest that training and other preventive measures have done some good. For example, statistics published on the EEOC’s website (here and here) show a more-or-less steady decline in the number of harassment charges filed with the agency each fiscal year, from a high of 15,889 charges in FY1997 to just 6,822 charges in FY2015.
If sexual harassment lawsuits were the hot topic in employment law a decade or two ago, today it’s wage and hour law. Why? Wage and hour violations don’t require proof of motive or intent. They are easier for plaintiffs to prove, and harder for employers to defend against. The amounts due are often fairly easy to calculate or estimate, and wage and hour violations frequently affect entire classes of employees rather than just individuals. And, unfortunately, the law is deceptively complicated, leading to frequent screw-ups by even well-intentioned employers.Continue Reading Have You Trained Your Supervisors on Wage & Hour Compliance?
In a move that should surprise precisely no one
who has been paying attention to current U.S. politics, GOP lawmakers in the U.S. House and Senate introduced legislation to block the U.S. DOL’s anticipated overtime exemption rules, just two days after the DOL sent the final rule to the Office of Management and Budget. OMB review is typically the final stage before publication of a new rule.
The legislation, dubbed the “Protecting Workplace Advancement and Opportunity Act,” would:
Continue Reading DOL OT Exemption Rules DOA? Federal Wage Theft Legislation? Probably Not …
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Back in December, we wrote about a case involving the Chicago Police Department, in which officers alleged that they were owed additional overtime for time spent responding to calls and messages on their Blackberry devices, but which they failed to report in accordance with Police Department procedures. The court ruled for the City, holding