For some time now, the U.S. Department of Labor’s Wage and Hour Division (“WHD”) has been taking a progressively more aggressive approach to wage and hour compliance, marked by increased staffing/resources and more frequent investigations.  Certain industries, like construction and gas/oil industry employers, are now frequent targets, but no business is immune from the government’s…

Whether meal breaks count as compensable hours worked for non-exempt employees under the Fair Labor Standards Act can be a thorny issue for employers. The FLSA regulations provide that meal periods during which an employee is “completely relieved of duty for the purpose of eating regular meals” do not count as hours worked. 29 C.F.R.…

You may recall that, in late June 2015, the U.S. Department of Labor issued a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking seeking public comment on proposed changes to the Fair Labor Standards Act’s  “white-collar” overtime exemption regulations. The DOL’s proposed rule changes would more than double the minimum salary required for the FLSA’s white-collar exemptions from the…

The U.S. Department of Labor Wage and Hour Division recently released new guidance for businesses in an attempt to provide clarity and notice to organizations that may have individuals performing services for them who are improperly classified as independent contractors. The unsurprising summary? The DOL believes that the vast majority of such individuals performing services…

At long last, on Tuesday, June 30, the Department of Labor released its Notice of Proposed Rulemaking seeking public comment on proposed changes to the Fair Labor Standards Act’s  “white collar” overtime exemption regulations. The DOL’s proposal contained a few expected changes, along with a few surprises.

The Primary Proposed Change – Huge Increase in …

Deciding which employees are exempt from overtime regulations can be one of the more challenging questions companies face. Check out this informative McNees article on the subject!
Continue Reading Mistakes in Deciding Who Qualifies for Overtime Can Be Costly

We have been updating you on a class action lawsuit pending in the Luzerne County Court of Common Pleas challenging a Pennsylvania employer’s use of payroll debit cards to pay wages to its employees. May was a busy month for that case, with troubling implications for Pennsylvania employers who utilize this wage payment option.

First,…