The issue of independent contractors and employment status continues to vex employers and present substantial liability risks. The employment laws generally cover only employees, not independent contractors. Properly classified independent contractors cannot have viable claims under the discrimination laws, wage and hour laws, leave laws, workers’ compensation laws, etc., because they are not covered by
Wage & Hour
Take Two: DOL Announces New Proposed FLSA Overtime Regulations
By Adam R. Long on
Posted in Wage & Hour
On March 7, the Department of Labor released its Notice of Proposed Rulemaking seeking public comment on proposed changes to the minimum salary requirements in the Fair Labor Standards Act’s “white-collar” overtime exemption regulations. If that sounds familiar, the DOL went through this same process back in 2015, only to have that new rule blocked…
Update on New Overtime Regulations: Will We See New State AND Federal White-Collar Overtime Exemption Regulations in 2019?
By Adam R. Long on
Posted in Wage & Hour
As we have been following on this blog, Governor Wolf announced in January 2018 that the Pennsylvania Department of Labor and Industry (DLI) would propose new regulations under the Pennsylvania Minimum Wage Act (PMWA) that would modify the PMWA’s overtime and minimum wage exemption requirements for executive, administrative, and professional salaried employees. DLI submitted…
Update on Proposed Changes to Pennsylvania White-Collar Overtime Exemptions
By Adam R. Long on
Posted in Wage & Hour
We have been tracking the status of the proposed changes to the white-collar overtime exemptions in the Pennsylvania Minimum Wage Act (PMWA) regulations. In January 2018, Governor Wolf announced that the Pennsylvania Department of Labor and Industry (DLI) would be proposing new regulations to amend the PMWA regulations that govern its overtime and minimum…
DOL Opinion Letter Addresses Whether Employees Must Be Paid for Wellness Activities
By Eric Athey on
Posted in Employee Benefits, Wage & Hour
Over the past fifteen years, wellness programs have generated more than their fair share of litigation and regulatory scrutiny – primarily over the issue of whether they comply with the Americans with Disabilities Act. A related compliance issue that has attracted relatively little attention from courts and regulators is whether, under the Fair Labor Standards…
Supreme Court Rules Fair Share Fees are Unconstitutional
By Langdon Ramsburg, Adam Santucci & Jen Will on
This morning the Supreme Court issued its long-awaited opinion in Janus v. AFCSME , holding that requiring public sector employees to pay fair share fees to unions violates the First Amendment. As we discussed in our prior posts , a fair share fee (sometimes called an agency fee) is a fee that non-union members must…
Pennsylvania Proposes Big Changes to State Law White-Collar Overtime Exemptions
By Adam R. Long on
Posted in Wage & Hour
Back in January, Governor Wolf announced that the Pennsylvania Department of Labor and Industry (DLI) would propose new regulations under the Pennsylvania Minimum Wage Act (PMWA) that would increase the minimum salary requirement for the white-collar overtime exemptions under this law.
The PMWA is the state-law equivalent of the federal Fair Labor Standards Act…
Congress Takes a Dip in the Tip Pool
By Erica Townes on
Posted in Wage & Hour
President Trump recently signed into law Congress’ $1.3 trillion, 2,232-page omnibus budget bill. Notably, tucked away on page 2,025 of the bill, Congress amended the Fair Labor Standards Act to address rules affecting tipped employees. These rules have been a hot topic lately and there is a lot of misinformation floating around. Here is what…
Supreme Court Holds that Auto Service Advisors are Exempt from Overtime Compensation
By Erica Townes on
Posted in Wage & Hour
Today, the United States Supreme Court has finally put to rest the issue of whether service advisors are exempt from the overtime compensation requirements of the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA). You may recall an earlier post, discussing the law’s ambiguity in how auto dealers should classify service advisors under the Fair Labor Standards…
Pennsylvania Court Decision Highlights the “Do’s and Don’ts” of Paying Non-Exempt Employees on a Salary Basis
By Eric Athey on
Posted in Wage & Hour, Workplace Trends
Under the Fair Labor Standards Act (“FLSA”), employers are permitted to pay non-exempt employees a fixed salary to cover straight-time earnings for all hours worked in a week, provided several conditions are met: a) the employee’s hours must fluctuate week to week; b) the employee must be paid the fixed salary in weeks where employee…