Wage and Hour  

CALIFORNIA: Two new laws increase scrutiny of employers’ wage decisions

Governor Brown has signed two companion bills designed to improve pay equity in the workplace. The first expands California’s groundbreaking pay equity law beyond gender so it also covers race and ethnicity (SB 1063). The second forbids employers from using prior salary as the sole justification for a pay disparity based on…

Affirmative ActionHarassment & DiscriminationWage and Hour  

OFCCP wrings significant settlements from employers

The Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs (OFCCP) has announced a string of recent settlements with federal contractors over alleged employment discrimination.

Wage and HourWorkers’ Comp  

Q&A: Washington injured workers’ attending providers

Q: In Washington, which of the following types of providers can be an injured workers' attending provider?

Advanced RN Practioner (ARNP)
Physician's Assistant (PA)
Chiropractic (DC)
Naturopathy (ND)
Osteopathic Medicine (DO)
Dentistry (DDS or DMD)
Optometry (OD)
Podiatry (DPM)

Wage and Hour  

Payroll timekeeping practices: Rounding policies are permitted as long as they are neutral

The U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals recently ruled that both federal and California law allow rounding of employee work time to the nearest quarter-hour. Rounding should be neutral and even out over time, meaning that employees could benefit from the rounding by receiving more pay just as easily as…

Q&AEmployee BenefitsWage and Hour  

Cash in lieu of benefits must be included in regular rate calculation for overtime

Question: We offer health benefits to our employees. We also allow employees to “opt out” of our offered coverage if they can provide evidence that they have alternate coverage elsewhere. For those employees who “opt out” of our offered coverage, we provide a set amount of money each month. Do we have to include that amount of money in the regular rate of pay and in the calculation of the overtime rate?

Wage and Hour  

ALERT: DOL reveals new salary level for salaried workers exempt from overtime

Today the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) announced its final regulations raising the minimum salary level for salaried workers to be exempt from overtime.

Wage and Hour  

Pre-Shift and Post-Shift Activities: Should the Time Spent Briefing Employees be Paid?

An employer in Texas will pay $460,853 to compensate 239 employees who weren’t getting paid for the time they spent staying after their shifts to update incoming workers. The oil refinery employees were scheduled to work 12-hour shifts, but at the 12-hour mark, they had to update incoming employees on what had…

Wage and Hour  

Employers liable for double damages for exempt status misclassification

A call center employer in Idaho has been ordered to pay misclassified employees not only for their actual unpaid overtime, but also an equal amount as liquidated damages, doubling the company’s liability. The employer had classified its “trainers” as exempt from overtime pay based on the supervisory and management tasks that they thought the…

Q&AWage and Hour  

Requiring reimbursement of training costs can be tricky

Question: We send new hires through a training program that is worth $20,000. Can we require them to pay us back if they leave the company within two years?

Wage and Hour  

EEOC proposes to add pay and hours to EEO-1 Report requirements

A proposed expansion of the EEO-1 Report would require all private employers with at least 100 employees to provide data on compensation and hours worked.