On September 12, 2012, Family Dollar announced that it will pay up to $14 million to settle a class action in the Southern District of New York. Similar to other class actions filed against Family Dollar over the years, New York store managers claimed that the Company failed to pay them overtime. Although the agreement
Are Summer Camp Staff Exempt? [Lesser Known Exemptions]
Most regular readers of this blog will be familiar with the most common exemptions to the overtime requirements of the Fair Labor Standards Act, those being the “white collar” exemptions for executive, administrative, and professional employees. However, the FLSA also contains a number of less well-known exemptions covering specific establishments or industries. In this post
Court Rejects Challenge to DOL’s Interpretation That Mortgage Loan Officers are Non-exempt
I wanted to give our readers a quick update on the status of mortgage loan officers. In Mortgage Bankers Ass’n v. Solis, a federal district court in Washington D.C. recently rejected a challenge to the March 2010 DOL administrator’s interpretation that mortgage loan officers do not generally meet the administrative exemption under the FLSA. As
Can Employees Agree to Be Exempt? [Wage & Hour FAQs]
Q. Our employees consider themselves “professionals” and don’t want to be treated as hourly workers. If our employees agree to it, can we still treat them as “exempt” even if they don’t meet all of the requirements under the FLSA or state law?
A. In a word, no. This question comes up more often than you might think. In some cases, particular industries have developed a practice of treating certain categories of employees as “salaried” and assuming that they are exempt. In others, employees would simply rather be “salaried” or “exempt” because this suggests a higher status than an “hourly” position, or because they prefer not to have to track their time.
Unfortunately for employers, an employee’s choice generally had nothing to do with whether or not the employee can legitimately be classified as “exempt” from overtime requirements under state and federal law. With very few exceptions, the rights provided by the Fair Labor Standards Act and its state equivalents can’t be waived or modified by an agreement with the employee.
So how can employers manage employee expectations without running afoul of the law? Continue Reading Can Employees Agree to Be Exempt? [Wage & Hour FAQs]
Pharmaceutical Sales Representatives Found to be Exempt by Seventh Circuit
The Seventh Circuit recently weighed in on whether pharmaceutical sales representatives are exempt under the FLSA in Susan Schaeffer-LaRose v. Eli Lilly & Company. In this consolidated case, the Seventh Circuit focused on the administrative exemption in determining that the sales representatives were exempt. Because the Court found that the sales representatives met the
Recent Settlements Agreeing to Pay Overtime for Misclassification of Employees
Misclassification of employees continues to bring a lot of headaches to employers. I have worked with a wide variety of businesses on this issue – from Fortune 500 to “mom and pop” companies. Each has its own way of doing things in this area and monitoring classification compliance is pretty low on the to-do list.
Paying On a “Salary Basis” Requires Actual Payments
As we have discussed before, to be considered an exempt executive, administrative, or professional employee, most employees must be paid on a “salary basis,” meaning that they receive a fixed salary for each workweek regardless of the number of hours worked or the quality or quantity of work performed. In a ruling that at
More Store Managers Found to Meet Executive Exemption
On April 3, 2012, a federal district court in South Carolina determined that two Dollar General store managers met the executive exemption from overtime pay under the FLSA. Gooden v. Dolgencorp and Thomas v. Dolgencorp. Granting summary judgment to Dolgencorp, the court held that Gooden’s and Thomas’s primary duties were managerial in nature based
Ten Things Small Business Needs To Know About Minimum Wage and Overtime
I read the stories every day: some small business, often a local restaurant or a similar “mom and pop” operation, gets sued or tagged by the Department of Labor for failing to pay minimum wages and overtime to employees. Here’s just one example.
I have worked with a fair number of small and midsize
Do I Have To Pay An Exempt Employee Who Answers E-Mail Or Phone Calls While On FMLA Leave? [Wage & Hour FAQ]
Q. A salaried, exempt employee who recently returned from a week of unpaid FMLA leave claims that he is entitled to be paid his full salary for entire week because he responded to a number of work-related e-mails and telephone calls while he was out. Do we have to pay?
A. Wage and hour law is