A company learned the hard way that paying an employee a salary does not remove the obligation to pay for overtime if the employee is entitled to it. A restaurant in Akron, Ohio found this out the hard way and it ended up costing them $118,354 in back wages and damages, paid out to 21 …
Read morePaying a salary does not alleviate the need to pay overtime: Another case of "bad" HR
Most of you by now have heard that the FLSA changes on the salary level to be and exempt employee scheduled to go into effect on December 1 have been stopped, at least temporarily, by a Federal judge in Texas. This will have different meaning to different parties, depending on where they were in the …
There used to be a character on Saturday Night Live that Gilda Radner played by the name of Emily Littela. Emily was a little old lady that came on the news segment to respond to a supposed editorial position by the news station. She would start off with “What’s all this fuss about….” and follow …
Jody Thompson, the president of Culturex, said in a presentation to the 2013 Benefits Forum and Expo, that we need a workplace where “Each person is free to do whatever they want whenever they want as long as the work gets done” according to writer Kathleen Koster. It sounds great, but I have to …
The Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) requires that nonexempt employees are paid for ALL time worked. It is the tracking of this time that becomes the basis for payment of overtime. The requirement under the FLSA is that nonexempt employees are paid overtime for all hours worked that exceed 40 hours in a week. Seems …
I received a question about what to do with an employee who is exempt, yet only puts in 40 hours per week over 4 days. One week he had to work and extra day and now he wants to work only 3 days the next week. That question got me to thinking about companies …
Perhaps it started with Hilda Solis, the Secretary of Labor, announcing that employers were stealing a $1,000,000 a week from their employees and she was the new sheriff in town and she was going to correct that. But since then a number of states and municipalities have been passing “Wage Theft” laws. Additionally, the …
Read moreNot Paying Overtime May Result in Loss of Your Business License
I am sitting watching the news when a report comes up talking about a lawsuit filed in Chicago by a police sergeant. He claims as a non-exempt employee is due overtime for all the off-duty use of his Blackberry. The courts have allowed him to seek other members of the police department for a …
Read moreHow to Build in Overtime: Non-Exempt Employees and Smart Phone Use
I have stated many, many times on this blog that paying attention to compliance issues, particularly those regarding the Fair Labor Standards Act is important. Here are some of those posts: Pay Attention Managers: You have to track time ACTUALLY WORKED! A VERY EXPENSIVE Lesson in NOT Following the Rules It Will Cost Me …
Read moreWhy Paying Attention to Wage and Hour Compliance is IMPORTANT
QuikTrip, a Tulsa, Oklahoma based convenience store chain, has agreed to pay out $750,000 in overtime payments that the U.S. DOL said were due employees because of a violation of the Fair Labor Standards Act. By just looking at the headline you might think this is the “standard” case of a company working employees off …
Read moreGetting Punished for Trying to do Good: The Lesson in the Quik Trip Fine