Rojgar Job News

If you’ve been following our blog, you already know that the topic of employer-mandated arbitration agreements has been a hot issue in recent years for government agencies and in the state and federal courts.  Most notably, in May of last year, the United States Supreme Court issued its highly-anticipated decision in Epic Systems v. Lewis , in which it confirmed that employers may require employees to enter into mandatory arbitration agreements as a condition of employment without violating the National Labor Relations Act (“Act”).  As you may recall, Epic Systems arose out of dispute in which the National Labor Relations Board (“NLRB” or “Board”) took the position that employer-mandated arbitration agreements requiring that employees waive the right to engage in class or collective litigation are unenforceable because Section 7 of the Act protects an employee’s right to engage in protected concerted activity, which the NLRB arg...

On September 24, 2019, the U.S. Department of Labor (“DOL”) announced its long-awaited final overtime rule. Under the current DOL rules implementing the Fair Labor Standards Act (“FLSA”), to be exempt from overtime pay under the “white collar” exemptions (e.g., executive, administrative, professional), an employee generally must be paid a predetermined, fixed, non-fluctuating salary of $455/week. However, as we reported on March 7, earlier this spring, the DOL proposed a rule to raise the FLSA salary threshold. After thousands of public comments on the Notice of Proposed Rulemaking, the DOL announced on September 24 that it will increase the FLSA salary threshold even further than the DOL had proposed earlier this year, to $684/week, or the equivalent of $35,568/year. The methodology the DOL used to determine the salary threshold is similar to that it used in 2004 when the threshold was last updated, tying the salary level to the 20th percentile of ea...

The United States Department of Labor’s (“DOL”) Wage and Hour Division issued two opinion letters on September 10, 2019, addressing certain aspects of the federal Family and Medical Leave Act (“FMLA”) and Fair Labor Standards Act (“FLSA”). DOL opinion letters are not binding law, but provide guidance into how the DOL interprets the laws that it enforces. Below is a brief summary of the guidance provided in these recent letters. One of these letters indicated that employers may not delay the designation of FMLA leave even if the employer is subject to a Collective Bargaining Agreement (“CBA”) that provides for such an option. This letter responded to an inquiry by a government employer who reported that it was subject to a CBA that provides job-protected, paid leave for employees to use for certain family and medical reasons. The CBA also provides that employees continue to accrue seniority while using such paid leave. The employ...

Rule establishes standard under which two employers will be deemed jointly and severally liable under the Fair Labor Standards Act as of March 16, 2020 In January 2016, we posted about an Administrator’s Interpretation issued by the US Department of Labor’s (DOL) then-Wage and Hour Division Administrator that provided guidance for when two or more employers should be considered “joint employers” under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA).  (The FLSA is the primary federal statute that regulates minimum wage and overtime compensation for US workers.)  This guidance noted the “growing variety and number of business models and labor arrangements,” and suggested that because of this, more direction was needed “to hold all responsible parties accountable for their legal obligations.” Now, four years later, the DOL has issued its Final Rule on Joint Employer Status under the FLSA.  The rule specifically addresses two types of poten...

Although the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), commonly referred to as the “coronavirus,” remains a developing situation, it has begun affecting the US in major ways.  With cases now reported throughout the US, every organization should have a plan of action in place concerning the coronavirus.  Although every business faces unique considerations, a cross-disciplinary team of Squire Patton Boggs attorneys have collaborated to prepare guidance – available here – for organizations to consider when addressing coronavirus-related employment, customer service, and other issues.

During the second half of March 2020, the US Congress passed three landmark pieces of legislation addressing the COVID-19 (a/k/a novel coronavirus) pandemic.  One of these was the Families First Coronavirus Response Act (FFCRA).  Under this law, employers of fewer than 500 employees are required to provide eligible employees with up to 80 hours of paid sick leave benefits as well as up to 10 weeks of partially-paid family leave, in each case, when an eligible employee is unable to work or telework due to certain COVID-19 related reasons.  The FFCRA went into effect on April 1, 2020, and on that same date, the U.S. Department of Labor issued extensive regulations providing further detail on the benefits available and employer obligations under the FFCRA.  In this In-Depth Analysis, Squire Patton Boggs will be analyzing these regulations in a five-part series of blog posts. In this first post, we address employer coverage, including when employers will be considered jo...

Throughout this past week, we have provided a comprehensive analysis of the various provisions of the federal Families First Coronavirus Response Act (FFCRA), the first ever federal law requiring the payment of paid sick leave and paid family leave for various COVID-19-related reasons.  These daily updates include consideration of employer and employee coverage; qualifying reasons for leave; complicated issues in paying employees; and job restoration requirements under both the paid sick and paid family provisions of the FFCRA.  For your convenience, we have compiled each day’s analysis here, and Squire Patton Boggs partners Jill Kirila and Laura Lawless will be doing a fulsome review of these provisions—and well as discussing challenges employers face in implementing difficult employment decisions, such as reductions-in-force, hours reductions, and furloughs—in a webinar on Monday, April 13, 2020 at 1 p.m. Eastern/10 a.m. Pacific.  To register, please c...

Previous installments of our series analyzing in detail the Families First Coronavirus Response Act (FFCRA) and the regulations interpreting that law issued by the US Department of Labor addressed the following issues: Part One – employee eligibility and employer coverage; Part Two – the coronavirus-specific circumstances why eligible employees may take paid leave; Part Three – the rules that apply to employees’ use of emergency paid sick leave and public health emergency paid family leave; and Part Four – how employers calculate the amount of pay to be provided as paid FFCRA leave. In this final installment, we close out our analysis of the FFCRA by discussing what happens at the end of FFCRA leave, including employee job restoration rights, and the protections in the law against discrimination and retaliation. Click here to download Part Five of the series.

The first three installments of our five-part series analyzing the US Department of Labor regulations interpreting the Families First Coronavirus Response Act (FFCRA) examined eligibility and coverage issues.  Part One looked at which employees are eligible to take, and which employers are required to provide, emergency paid sick leave and public health emergency paid family leave under the FFCRA.  Part Two addressed the coronavirus-specific reasons why an eligible employee may take job-protected paid sick leave or paid family leave.  Part Three analyzed the unique rules regarding how emergency paid sick leave and public health emergency paid family leave may be used. In this fourth installment, we consider how employers are to calculate the “regular rate of pay” in order to pay employees exercising paid leave rights under the FFCRA, a concept far easier in theory than in practice. Click here to download Part Four of the series.

The first two installments of our five-part in-depth analysis of the emergency paid sick leave and public health emergency paid family leave provisions of the Families First Coronavirus Response Act (FFCRA) – see here and here – analyzed the statutory language and regulations governing employer coverage, employee eligibility, the circumstances under which employees can request leave under the FFCRA, and what documentation an employer can require to support those requests. In Part Three, we now look at how employees may use leave under the FFCRA, including how the paid leave provisions of the FFCRA coordinate with existing employer and state law paid leave policies, how the two types of FFCRA paid leave coordinate with each other, and an issue under the FFCRA that vexes employers under even under non-pandemic circumstances: when can leave be used intermittently? Click here to download Part Three of the series.

In the first part of our in-depth analysis of the Families First Coronavirus Response Act (FFCRA) and its accompanying regulations, we addressed employer coverage and employee eligibility issues under the new law.   In the second installment of this series, we turn to looking at the coronavirus-specific reasons upon which an employee can obtain FFCRA leave, including a government quarantine order, the employee’s illness or seeking a medical diagnosis, the illness of a family member or other close relation, and caregiver and child care responsibilities.  We also examine the notice an employee must provide of the need for FFCRA leave, and what proof an employer can require an employee provide in order to support a request for leave under the FFCRA. Click here to download Part Two of the series.

In what Labor Secretary Eugene Scalia called a step in the US Department of Labor’s (DOL) goal of lessening “unnecessary regulatory burdens” on businesses, on May 20, 2020 the DOL released a final rule regarding the calculation of overtime for salaried non-exempt workers with fluctuating workweeks. The rule change may encourage payment of additional incentive compensation to non-exempt employees paid using the “fluctuating workweek” (FWW) method of computing overtime without jeopardizing the advantageous overtime calculation. Ordinarily, to calculate overtime, an employer determines a non-exempt employee’s regular rate of pay by dividing their total remuneration earned in the workweek by the number of hours worked, and then pays the regular rate plus an additional 50% of the regular rate for any overtime hours worked by the non-exempt employee. By contrast, the FWW formula of overtime payment allows businesses to pay employees whose hours vary widely ...

The U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) has issued a new rule regarding the interpretation of Section 7(i) of the Fair Labor Standards Act, an overtime exemption applicable to employees of certain retail and service establishments who are paid in part via commissions. The statute provides that an employer shall not be deemed to have violated the overtime requirement by employing any employee of a “retail or service establishment” for a workweek in excess of forty (40) hours, if (i) the regular rate of pay of such employee is in excess of one and one-half times the minimum hourly rate (i.e., currently $10.88, which is 1.5x federal minimum wage), and (ii) more than half the employee’s compensation for a representative period of not less than one month represents commissions on goods or services. The Wage and Hour Division of the DOL defines a “retail or service establishment” as “an establishment 75 per centum of whose annual dollar volume of sales of goods ...