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
Exemption Rules Appeal Won’t Be Resolved Before Obama Leaves Office
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
New Exemption Rules Blocked – Now What?
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,
What Will The Trump Administration Mean for Wage and Hour Law?
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
Employer Concerns About The New Overtime Exemption Rules Aren’t A Myth
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 and Hour Division, set out to debunk some purported “myths” about the new rules. Reading this post, one is left with the impression that the new rules will benefit pretty much every affected employee with no real burden on employers. Here are some thoughts on these “myths” and the “truths” that Dr. Weil offers in response to each:
Continue Reading Employer Concerns About The New Overtime Exemption Rules Aren’t A Myth
New Rules Announced: $47,476 Minimum Salary, Effective 12/1/2016
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
Details of New Overtime Exemption Rules Begin To Emerge
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
DOL OT Exemption Rules DOA? Federal Wage Theft Legislation? Probably Not …
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:
- Void the DOL’s new rules;
- Allow the DOL to publish updated rules only after conducting a detailed analysis of the rules’ impact on small business, non-profit and public employers;
- Bar the DOL from adopting rules that provide for automatic adjustments of the minimum salary level without going through a formal notice and comment rulemaking process;
- Require any proposed changes to the “duties” tests for the overtime exemptions to be published and subject to public notice and comment.
Continue Reading DOL OT Exemption Rules DOA? Federal Wage Theft Legislation? Probably Not …
Continued Controversy Surrounding The Proposed New Overtime Rule
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
New FLSA Exemption Rules – Coming In July?
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