Wage and hour law is full of traps for the unwary. Even compensation practices that are well-accepted across an entire industry can sometimes create huge headaches for employers in the face of a legal challenge. Case in point: A recent decision by the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals in Hewitt v. Helix Energy Solutions Group, Case No. 19-20023, in is causing upheaval in the energy sector by suggesting that even highly paid supervisory employees may be entitled to overtime pay on top of their six-figure compensation because they are paid a day rate rather than a weekly salary.
Continue Reading Even High Earning Supervisors Can Be Entitled to Overtime

On Tuesday, the U.S. Department of Labor issued its final rule concerning overtime exemptions. The rule increases the salary threshold for employees exempt under the executive, administrative, and professional exemptions (the “white collar exemptions”) from $455 per week (or $23,660 annually) to $684 per week (or $35,568 annually). Additional changes include:

  • Increasing the total annual compensation threshold for highly compensated employees (“HCEs”) from $100,000 per year to $107,432 per year;
  • Permitting employers to use nondiscretionary bonuses and incentive payments to satisfy up to 10% of the increase salary threshold; and
  • Committing to updating the salary threshold more regularly.

The new rule is set to take effect on January 1, 2020 and increase the number of overtime-eligible employees by 1.3 million. No changes to the duties test have been made.Continue Reading New Minimum Salary For Exempt Employees Takes Effect January 1, 2020

Oh the weather outside is frightful …

No, seriously, it’s actually dangerous here in Chicago. Since much of the city seems to be on lock-down today as we all try not to freeze to death, this seems like a good time to review the rules relating to employee pay during weather-related shut-downs.

For non-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

In a move that should surprise precisely no onecapitol-hill-building 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 …