Vigilant Blog

Employers can’t use prior salary history to justify paying employees less than their opposite-sex colleagues, the U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals has confirmed. The federal Equal Pay Act (EPA) allows employers to explain pay differences between men and women performing equal work by pointing to seniority, merit, production, or any “factor other than sex.” As…

The U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) has updated its guidance on the “regular rate” requirements under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA). Under the FLSA, employers must pay workers overtime of at least one-and-a-half times the “regular rate” for hours worked beyond 40 hours per workweek. The regular rate could just be a worker’s normal…

The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) says it needs time to analyze the 2017 and 2018 data on worker pay and hours it’s currently collecting, and therefore doesn’t intend to ask for such data in future years. The agency has also come to the conclusion that it grossly underestimated the amount of time it…

Question: Our plant manager asked the managers of the other operations in our business park to share what they’re paying for forklift operators and what they’re planning for wage increases this year. He’d like to make sure that we remain competitive; is his informal survey of these local companies okay? Answer: Absolutely not! Antitrust laws…

Employers with 100 or more employees can now file “Component 2” of the EEO-1 Report, which covers pay and hours worked during 2017 and 2018. The deadline for filing the report is September 30, 2019. The requirement to file Component 2 data applies to companies with at least 100 employees on an employer-chosen snapshot date…