labor lawAdivision of labor law center

Despite a recent ruling in the 9^th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, the U.S. Department of Labor is targeting employers who violate wage and hour laws.

The federal Department of Labor has filed several class action suits in recent months against employers who require – or permit – employees to work “off the clock.” Violations include permitting employees to work while on unpaid meal breaks, or permitting employees to “volunteer” after hours and on weekends.

The FLSA or Fair Labor Standards Act permits the government to file collective actions on behalf of a group of employees in a similar situation. Employers are generally liable for 2 years of back pay, and 3 years in the case of willful violations.

In a recent ruling limiting membership in such class action suits, the 9^th Circuit Court of appeals ruled that an employee can join a collective action only if he or she files written consent with the court at the time the action is brought.

In Smith v. T-Mobile USA, two employees in California voluntarily settled their claims for working during unpaid breaks. Later, the two filed motions to be included in the collective action suit against T-Mobile USA, Inc. The 9^th Circuit denied the employees’ motions, ruling that because they had opted out of the suit at the beginning, they could not join it at a later time.

Colleen F. O’Keefe, an employment lawyer (more…)

With the most recent hike in the federal minimum wage from $6.55 to $7.25 per hour, there are now 28 states with the same minimum wage. All of these states share the $7.25 minimum wage rate:  Alaska, Arizona, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Iowa, Idaho, Indiana, Kentucky, Maine, Maryland, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, South Dakota, Texas, Utah, Virginia, West Virginia and Wisconsin.

Some of these states, like Hawaii and Kentucky, had already implemented a minimum wage of $7.25. Others, such as Texas, Utah, Maryland and Indiana, adopt the federal minimum wage automatically. In some of those states, the July 2009 increase was relatively minor. The Florida minimum wage, for example, increased from $7.21 to $7.25 per hour while New York and New Jersey increased from $7.15 to $7.25 per hour.

Even such insignificant increases require employers to update their federal and state minimum wage posters, of course.

Four states have minimum wages lower than the federal rate. Kansas has the dubious honor of being the state with the lowest minimum wage at $2.65 per hour – although that rate will change later this year. The others are:

Arkansas                   $6.25

Minnesota                 $6.15

Wyoming                   $5.15

However, those states do not offer the lowest wages. Five states have never passed a minimum wage law: South Carolina, Mississippi, Alabama, Louisiana and Tennessee. In those states, wages are a private matter between the employer and the employee. Unless the employee is covered by the federal minimum wage law (and most are), the employer can pay any hourly wage he or she likes.

Thirteen states plus the District of Columbia have minimum wages that are higher than the federal rate. The are, in alphabetical order:

California                              $8.00

Colorado                               $7.28

Connecticut                          $8.00

District of Columbia             $8.25

Illinois                                    $8.00

Massachusetts                     $8.00

Michigan                               $7.40

Nevada                                  $7.55

New Mexico                          $7.50 

Ohio                                       $7.30

Oregon                                  $8.40

Rhode Island                        $7.40

Vermont                                $8.06

Washington                          $8.55 

The highest state minimum wage is in Washington, at $8.55 per hour. Oregon is second at $8.40 per hour while Vermont is third with a minimum wage of $8.06 per hour. Those states are likely to remain in the top 3, since each of them implements an annual cost-of-living increase

Illinois, Massachusetts, Connecticut and California are tied in fourth place (more…)

The federal minimum wage increased by 70 cents from $6.55 to $7.25 per hour on July 24, 2009.

Employers should update their federal minimum wage poster. Under the law, an employer who fails to prominently display an updated poster where all employees may see it, can be subject to fines.

This increase affects employers differently, depending upon which state the employer is in. By law, when an employee is covered by both the state and federal minimum wage, the employee is entitled to the higher minimum wage.

For example, while the new federal minimum wage is $7.25 per hour, (more…)

On July 24, 2009 the federal minimum wage increases from $6.55 to $7.25 per hour. This is the third and final annual increase under the Fair Minimum Wage Act of 2007.

Many employers consider this increase bad timing, considering the current economic conditions. However, when the Fair Minimum Wage Act was passed in 2006, during an unprecedented bubble in the stock market and real estate market.

For ten years, while the federal minimum wage sat at $5.15 an hour, members of Congress voted themselves raises that hiked their salaries by an average of $31,600 each.

That changed with the Fair Minimum Wage Act of 2007. According to the new Act, the minimum wages of American workers were increased by 70 cents an hour every year for three years, for a total increase of $2.10 per hour.

Each hike comes on July 24, and in 2007 on that date the hourly rate went from $5.15 an hour to $5.85. The next was from $5.85 to $6.55 an hour.

The third and final increase comes July 24, 2009, when the minimum wage rises from $6.55 to $7.25. Over the three years, the total increase per worker is $84 per week or $4,368 yearly.

The federal minimum wage law is the FLSA or Fair Labor Standards Act. It applies only to those employers who have more than 50 workers or who earn revenues of more than a half-million dollars a year. It also regulates the pay of employees in businesses that engage in interstate commerce. A business engages in interstate commerce when it mails to potential out-of-state customers, makes goods sold out of state, or buys its supplies from vendors who are outside their state.

Across the nation, more than half of all states nationwide have passed  laws that establish a higher minimum wage than the federal rate. Employees in those states are legally entitled to the higher rate.

Paying less than the minimum wage, the U.S. Department of Labor reminds employers, is against the law. It violates the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938, also known as the FLSA. The DOL’s Wage and Hour Division enforces the act, which also says that all workers must receive their wages by their regular paydays.

At $5.15 an hour, supporters of the increased federal minimum noted, a worker had less purchasing power than he or she would have had in 1968, when the minimum was $1.60 an hour. To be equal to purchasing power, they pointed out, the minimum wage would actually have to be $9.12 an hour in 2006. Although the new 2009 minimum wage is higher, it has not yet reached that level.

Employers may need to implement new payroll procedures due to a recent 8^th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruling on overtime.

In a Nebraska lawsuit against Famous Dave’s restaurant chain, the appeal court upheld the lower court ruling that the employer should have known that employees were working a more than one Famous Dave’s location.

The restaurant chain is based in Minnesota and has both franchise and company-owened locations throughout the Midwest.

The court found that most Omaha restaurants had policies prohibiting employees from working at more than one location. When an employee had permission to work at several locations, the employer had a system in place to combine the employees hours to calculate overtime.

However, Famous Dave’s  had no policy prohibiting employees from working at more than one location. A number of employees did work at two or more locations. Their hours were not combined to calculate overtime, (more…)