labor lawAdivision of labor law center

The Nebraska minimum wage will increase from $6.55 to $7.25 per hour on July 24, 2009. This is the same day as an increase to the federal minimum wage under the FLSA.

The federal Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) applies to employers who engage in interstate commerce, or who earn at least $500,000 per year. FLSA may also individual workers who are engaged in interstate commerce, even when the federal law does not apply to the entire business.

Federal, state and local government agencies are covered under FLSA, as are schools, hospitals and health care facilities. The U. S. Department of Labor’s Wage and Hour Division, www.dol.gov, enforces the FLSA.

In this struggling economy, an increase in the minimum wage could be a hardship to employers. The increase in 2009 is the last scheduled increase for at least a year. At present there is no federal minimum wage increase scheduled for 2010.

Many employers in Nebraska are covered by the FLSA. Those that do not fall under federal jurisdiction are covered by the Nebraska state minimum wage laws.

The Nebraska minimum wage mirrors the federal minimum. (more…)

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…)

Thirty-one U.S. states have laws requiring employers to give workers time off to vote. The penalties for employers who don’t give workers time off to vote can be severe.

In the U.S. territory of Puerto Rico, Election Day is a legal holiday. This includes any day a referendum is held. General elections are legal holidays in the Virgin Islands, and employees who give prior notice must be permitted two hours off, with pay, to vote.

Internationally, in many countries, election day (more…)