May 21 is National Waiters and Waitresses Day. The origin of the holiday is unclear, but it recognizes the value and importance of a good waiter or waitress, and encourages restaurant patrons to reward their food servers with good tips….
Category Archives: Fair Labor Standards Act
On National Waiters and Waitresses Day, Proper FLSA Payment Must Be Considered
May 21, 2013 – 5:38 pm
Is Time Spent Traveling to Trainings Outside of Normal Working Time Compensable?
May 10, 2013 – 11:13 am
If an employee who typically works a Monday through Friday schedule, travels out of town on a Sunday to attend a training that will be held on Monday, is the employee entitled to be paid for the time he/she is…
Strategies for Coping With a Wage and Hour Audit
May 1, 2013 – 3:22 pm
Thousands of employers get a figurative knock-on-the-door each year from an investigator from the U.S. Department of Labor’s Wage and Hour Division. WHD is the agency responsible for enforcing the Fair Labor Standards Act, the Family and Medical Leave Act,…
Supreme Court: Individual Settlement Offer Moots FLSA Collective Action Claim
April 18, 2013 – 4:43 pm
In a 5-4 decision, the U.S. Supreme Court held April 16 that because an employee received an individual settlement offer that fully satisfied her Fair Labor Standard Act claims, her individual and collective action claims could not go forward. The…
FLSA’s Emergency Exemption May Apply to Some Boston Employees
April 17, 2013 – 12:44 pm
Emergency situations — such as the April 15 explosions during the Boston Marathon — can result in employees performing multiple job duties. For example, a store manager may have spent time cleaning up glass and debris in and around the…
7th Circuit: Successor Must Pay $500K for Previous Owner’s FLSA Violations
April 5, 2013 – 4:13 pm
A successor employer could not escape paying a $500,000 damages award for the previous owner’s Fair Labor Standards Act violations. The case, Teed et al. v. Thomas & Betts Power Solutions LLC, Nos. 12-2440, 12-3029 (7th Cir. March 26, 2013),…
Can We Hire a Foreign Exchange Student as an Intern?
March 18, 2013 – 10:38 am
We are an accounting firm that frequently hires area college students to intern for short periods throughout the year. We recently received a few outstanding applications from foreign students attending the local college. Can we hire foreign students as interns?…
Public-sector Employers Face Additional FLSA Classification Risks
March 15, 2013 – 3:43 pm
Local governments and municipalities face many of the same wage and hour challenges as other employers, but they must deal with unique issues that could subject them to litigation if they aren’t fully up-to-speed on their compliance obligations. One tricky…
Court Questions Horton Decision in Light of D.C. Circuit Ruling
March 5, 2013 – 3:01 pm
Properly executed arbitration agreements can prohibit employees from bringing Fair Labor Standards Act collective actions in some federal courts. This is despite a National Labor Relations Board decision holding that mandatory arbitration for employment disputes violates the National Labor Relations…
FLSA Lawsuits Show Steep Learning Curve for Employers Offering Unpaid Internships
February 21, 2013 – 6:23 pm
Employers using unpaid interns need to be wary as lawsuits challenging the structure of these unpaid jobs continue to crop up. In recent years, several high-profile lawsuits — primarily in the publishing and entertainment industries — have highlighted the exposure…