After a federal judge in the Eastern District of Texas blocked the DOL’s new overtime exemption rule as it pertains to Texas state employees, another judge in the Northern District of Texas declined to issue a similar injunction in a challenge brought by tech company Flint Avenue, LLC. Without addressing the merits of the
FLSA
U.S. DOL Updates Salary Thresholds for Overtime Exemptions

On April 23, 2024, the U.S. Department of Labor issued final regulations updating the minimum salary threshold for employees to be considered exempt from overtime requirements under the Fair Labor Standards Act. The regulations are scheduled to be published in the Federal Register on April 26, 2024. The new rules increase the minimum salary from the current level of $684 per week (about $35,568 per year) to $844 per week (about $43,888 per year) effective July 1, 2024, and $1,128 per week (about $58,656 per year) effective January 1, 2025. According to the final rule, $844 per week is the “20th percentile for weekly earnings of full-time nonhourly workers in the lowest-wage Census Region and/or retail industry nationally,” and $1,128 per week is the 35th percentile. Beginning July 1, 2027 and every three years thereafter, the salary level would be readjusted to reflect updated earnings data. Continue Reading U.S. DOL Updates Salary Thresholds for Overtime Exemptions
New DOL Rule Adds Civil Penalties for Taking Employee Tips
In 2018, Congress added a provision to the Fair Labor Standards Act prohibiting employers from retaining employee tips or allowing managers or supervisors to participate in a tip pooling arrangement. Today, the U.S. Department of Labor announced a new final regulation in which the DOL asserts authority to penalize employers up to $1,100 per violation…
DOL’s Joint Employer Test Ruled Illegal
On September 8, 2020, the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York struck down portions of a January 2020 Final Rule issued by the Department of Labor. The Final Rule provided a new test for determining whether an entity is a joint employer with another entity under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA). The Final Rule, which became effective in March of 2020, severely limited the situations in which an entity can be considered a joint employer and held liable for violations of the FLSA in a “vertical” joint employment relationship. A vertical joint employment relationship is 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 ultimately benefits from the employee’s work. We discussed “horizontal” joint employment in a prior post.
Several states, including Illinois, filed suit challenging the Final Rule’s legality with respect to the Final Rule’s changes to the vertical joint employment determination. Historically, courts and the DOL have made clear that control over an individual’s employment is not the dispositive factor in determining whether an entity is a joint employer with another entity. Instead, whether a joint employment relationship exists depends upon whether the employee in question is economically dependent upon the potential joint employer.Continue Reading DOL’s Joint Employer Test Ruled Illegal
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…
Have you updated your FLSA and EPPA posters?
Regular readers may have noticed that this blog took a bit of a hiatus over the summer while the authors spent some time away from work, and then working to catch up from the time away. Now that summer is winding down, the kids are heading back to school and life is starting to return…
The Supreme Court Shoots Down DOL Regulations, But Declines To Rule Whether Service Advisors are Exempt From Overtime Pay Requirements
Yesterday, the United States Supreme Court issued its long-awaited decision in the Encino Motorcars, LLC v. Navarro case, that many hoped would resolve the issue as to whether Service Advisors at auto dealerships are exempt from the overtime provisions of the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA). As we reported back in January 2016, the Supreme Court agreed to hear a petition filed by an auto dealership, Encino Motorcars, challenging a Ninth Circuit decision holding that Service Advisors were not exempt from overtime pay requirements. Encino asked that the Court “restore uniformity” in legal precedent and hold that Service Advisors are exempt from the FLSA’s overtime pay requirements. Auto dealers were hoping that the Supreme Court would bring certainty to this issue and follow prior decisions from the Fourth and Fifth Circuits holding that Service Advisors are salespeople exempt from overtime, instead of following the Ninth Circuit’s contrary decision. Although the Supreme Court ultimately vacated the Ninth Circuit’s decision, the Court’s opinion leaves the issue open to further consideration.
Continue Reading The Supreme Court Shoots Down DOL Regulations, But Declines To Rule Whether Service Advisors are Exempt From Overtime Pay Requirements
New Salary Threshold May Be About $47,000
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…
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 …
Unreported Working Lunches May Still Be Work Time
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…