On June 30, the U.S. Department of Labor filed its long-awaited brief announcing the new administration’s position on the ongoing litigation over the FLSA overtime exemption rules published last May. As readers may recall, the new rules would have increased the minimum salary for exempt employees from $455 per week to $913 per week. The rules were … Continue Reading
The U.S. Department of Labor’s Wage & Hour Division announced today that it is bringing back the WHD Opinion Letter. Opinion letters have long been one of the most useful resources for lawyers and HR professionals trying to figure out how to comply with the laws enforced by the WHD, including the Fair Labor Standards Act … Continue Reading
On June 7, Secretary of Labor Alexander Acosta announced the withdrawal of two Administrator Interpretations (“AIs”) issued under the Obama administration regarding joint employment and independent contractors. We previously discussed the AI on independent contractors here, and the AI on joint employment here and here. Critics of the AIs argued that they amounted to an … Continue Reading
President Trump has had a busy week since his inauguration: ordering construction of a wall, starting to unwind the ACA, arguing with the media about how many people attended his inauguration – the list goes on. One thing that he has not yet gotten to is the U.S. DOL’s stalled overtime exemption rules. Right now … Continue Reading
Judge Amos Mazzant of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas has decided that he will not halt the lawsuit challenging the U.S. DOL’s new overtime exemption rules pending a ruling from the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals on his earlier order temporarily blocking the rules from taking effect. Here’s a quick recap … Continue Reading
Just a quick update on a couple of our recent stories for you wage and hour litigation junkies: Back on December 5, a three-judge panel of the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed dismissal of a case in which two former University of Pennsylvania student athletes claimed that they and other intercollegiate athletes were employees entitled to … Continue Reading
The pending court fight between the U.S. DOL and a coalition of states and business groups over the new overtime exemption rules will not be resolved before President Obama leaves office in January, even though the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals has now granted the DOL’s motion to set an expedited briefing schedule on its … Continue Reading
It looks like the U.S. Department of Labor’s appeal of the order blocking the new overtime exemption rules won’t be decided before President Obama leaves office. Under the Court of Appeals’ regular rules, the DOL’s opening brief would have been due in mid-January, followed by the response brief 30 days later, and the DOL’s reply 14 … Continue Reading
Yesterday, the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Texas dealt employers yet another surprise in this season of upsets with its decision in State of Nevada v. U.S. Department of Labor, halting the implementation of the DOL’s new FLSA overtime exemption rules, which were set to take effect December 1, 2016. The rules … Continue Reading
This is a post I certainly didn’t expect to be writing even 12 hours ago, but now that the results of the election are clear, it’s time to give some thought to what lies ahead under the forthcoming Trump administration. Details will of course start to emerge over the next couple of months, but I … Continue Reading
Every economist knows that there’s no such thing as a free lunch. That’s as true in the labor market as in any other area of the economy, but you’d hardly know that by reading the DOL’s publications promoting its new overtime exemption rules. For example, in a recent blog post, Dr. David Weil, Administrator of the DOL’s Wage … Continue Reading
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 final rules, but the key points are as follows: Effective Date: December 1, 2016. Note that this is … Continue Reading
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 per week, … Continue Reading
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 … Continue Reading
Since June, we have written a number of posts covering the Department of Labor’s proposed new overtime rule (see our posts here), and the more than doubling of the salary level threshold for white collar exempt positions. The proposed increase in the salary threshold was quite polarizing and resulted in nearly 300,000 comments. Despite the … Continue Reading
Over the last few months we’ve been asked on an almost daily basis when the DOL will be publishing its hotly anticipated white collar exemption rules. The short answer is still, we don’t know. A few months ago, the word was “late 2016,” which made some sense due to the extremely high volume of comments the DOL … Continue Reading
In our previous post about the DOL’s new Administrator’s Interpretation (“AI”) on joint employment under the FLSA, we focused on “vertical” joint employment. That’s the variety of joint employment that exists when there is some sort of intermediary, like a staffing firm, PLA, or temp agency between the employee and the employer that is ultimately … Continue Reading
On January 20, 2016, the Wage and Hour Division of the U.S. Department of Labor issued a new Administrator’s Interpretation (“AI”) on the issue of joint employment under the FLSA. What is joint employment? The FLSA generally applies only to “employers.” If a company or organization is an “employer” of a given employee, it’s responsible … Continue Reading
As we reported back in October 2015 a car dealership, Encino Motorcars, petitioned the Supreme Court to “restore uniformity” to the enforcement of legal precedent and hold that service advisors are exempt from the FLSA’s overtime requirements. On Friday, the Supreme Court agreed to hear the case and hopefully resolve the issue once and for all … Continue Reading
Waiting is the hardest part. Ever since the Department of Labor issued its proposal to substantially increase the minimum salary level needed to classify an employee as an exempt executive, administrative or professional employee, employers have been asking when the new rules will take effect. This is not an academic question: many organizations have long … Continue Reading
We recently received a question regarding whether an employer could classify certain IT employees as exempt under the Computer Employee exemption. With the long-awaited final DOL overtime rules for the white collar exemptions yet to make their appearance, we thought this would be a good opportunity to switch gears and remind you of the general … Continue Reading
As you have read in our blog over the years, the misclassification of employees as exempt is one of the primary claims in wage and hour litigation. Misclassification claims can arise in many forms, including the classification of a certain job in a particular industry. Mortgage loan officers anyone? Today’s post is focused on the … Continue Reading
In an interesting turn of events and what I’m sure will be gratifying for some employers, the Department of Labor has agreed to pay Gate Guard Services $1.5 million to settle claims involving the DOL’s overly aggressive and bad faith tactics in investigating whether Gate Guard’s gate attendants were improperly classified as independent contractors under … Continue Reading
Last week, we reminded you that the public comment period on the DOL’s proposed changes to the FLSA white collar exemptions was going to end on Friday, September 4, 2015, and the DOL was not going to extend this comment period despite requests to do so. True to its word, the public comment period came … Continue Reading
