The Department of Labor announced yesterday the Wage and Hour Division plans to hire 100 investigators this year. For sure, they’ll be earnest and energized. That’s why a solid grounding in the wage and hour laws affecting the government contractor community will be a powerful tool to ensure you get a fair shake.
Read MoreDepartment of Labor Wage and Hour Opinion Letters follow the ebb and flow of conservative and liberal executive administrations. When President Biden was inaugurated, we began a period where new Opinion Letters are a scarcity. This follows the practice of previous liberal administrations.
Read MoreThe judgments made as to how much price escalation to load into proposals for new service work for anticipated option year increases in exempt personnel wages and fringe benefits is made more complicated and important in an era of heightened inflation expectations.
Read MoreWhen Service Contract Act (“SCA”) covered nonexempt employees work at home or an alternate work site, does the employer have to get a new wage determination (“WD”) to cover the new locale? And if that new WD has higher wages must the contractor pay the higher rate? And how is DOL enforcing the SCA for remote workers in this pandemic era? The answers are maybe and very gingerly.
Read MoreAn Eastern District of New York Court holds that the Department of Labor is not bound by arbitration agreements to which the Department of Labor is not a party.
Read MoreWhen bidding on and pricing US government extended term fixed price contracts, contractors need to price in the possibility that state minimum wages will exceed the SCA or DBA wage levels, and require an escalation be paid, but the contracting agency will not adjust the contract price for that occurrence.
Read MoreUPDATE: President Biden is expected to announce executive orders that will mandate universal vaccination for federal workers and contractor employees with no testing option. We will post an update when the expected orders are issued. Federal contractor employees who work on Government sites must comply with President Biden’s vaccine or test policy. Must contractors pay employees for their time to get tested if they refuse to get a vaccine? Must contractors foot the bill for the tests? So far, these questions are going unanswered.
Read MoreWage and Hour Opinion letters provide much-needed guidance regarding the application of various requirements of the Fair Labor Standards Act. While one can raise questions over the validity of a specific opinion, the long term value of these opinions outweighs any one decision.
Read MoreMost federal workers will have tomorrow off in observance of the newly declared Juneteenth federal holiday. We previously posted a blog about the National Day of Mourning observing the death for President George H.W. Bush. While tomorrow’s celebration of freedom is so different from a day of mourning, they share the trait of being unexpected federal holidays that have an impact on federal contractors. Read on to learn more about the issues and options available when faced with an unexpected federal holiday.
Read MoreThe Fair labor Standards Act imposes a few additional requirements for employers with employees under the age of eighteen.
Read MoreThe Service Contract Act requires federal service contractors to provide certain fringe benefits to their employees. Some contractors pay cash in lieu of providing the benefits. Since the Fair Labor Standards Act requires payment of overtime based on a regular rate of pay, there’s a question as to whether cash-in-lieu payments must be added to wages to come up with the regular rate of pay. Read on to see how the Department of Labor and several courts reach different conclusions and how contractors should weigh their options.
Read MoreThe child labor laws have long prohibited minors from performing time sensitive delivery services. The idea is they are too tender and inexperienced as drivers, and it is unsafe work. Recently, a pizza palor business learned that ancient taboo the hard way, with DOL imposing civil money penalties for child labor violations.
Read MoreIn with the new and out with the old. Marty Walsh takes the helm at DOL and new proposed rulemaking and pull backs of the Trump Administration’s tip credit initiatives continue apace. Elections have consequences.
Read MoreThe independent contractor and joint employer initiatives of the Trump Administration are headed for the graveyard.
Read MoreThe FLSA may permit employers to pay their salaried employees using a fluctuating work week (“FWW”) method that only results in a payment of a half-time premium for overtime hours worked.
Read MoreEmployers who encourage employee participation in a vaccination plan through a one-time bonus, may run some wage and hour risks. There is a limited group of payments that can be excluded from the regular rate of pay. A Covdi-19 vaccination bonus isn’t one of those specifically identified payments. Since “no good deed goes unpunished” and with respect to nondiscretionary bonuses, the employer may have to worry about increasing their overtime liability for Fair Labor Standards Act (“FLSA”) covered employees if the bonus is found to be included in th eregular rate of pay. .
Read MoreCivil Money Penalties were subject to their annual adjustment. This year it was about a 1.2% upward adjustment. This includes the FLSA penalties. But it didn’t affect the CWHSSA or PCA penalties since they are rounded to a whole number and the inflation factor was not significant enough to cause that to happen.
Read MoreFor many who are working remotely, it feels like decades since they’ve strolled down to the break room where they can view many notices required by various employment laws such as the Fair Labor Standards Act (“FLSA”), the Family and Medical Leave Act (“FMLA”), the Service Contract Act (“SCA”), and the Employee Polygraph Protection Act (“EPPA”). A recent bulletin issued by the Department of Labor provides much needed guidance about how employers may use electronic posting to fulfill their posting obligations in the remote working world.
Read MoreThe future is unknowable. But here are some wage and hour predictions for 2021.
Read MoreDOL is scheduled to issue its final tip poling rules today. Meanwhile the DOL OIG recently found that the procedures DOL used back in 2017 to issue the proposed tip pooling rules were faulty. The OIG concludes that DOL did not follw a sound process in promulgating the proposed rules.
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