On March 18, new legislation was enacted in New York state to provide additional paid sick leave, as well as insurance benefits under paid family leave (“PFL”) and statutory disability (“DBL”) policies to employees subject to a mandatory or precautionary order of quarantine. This legislation is limited to where there is a mandatory or precautionary … Continue Reading
The holidays are upon us, NYC is bustling with tourists, and, with the typical surge in business this time of year, employers may be thinking about adding a few employees to their December and January schedules. This GT Alert provides important considerations with respect to those seasonal employment offers, including minimum wage, sexual harassment training, … Continue Reading
The U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) final rule raising the annual minimum salary requirements for the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) overtime exemptions for executive, administrative, and professional employees is effective Jan. 1, 2020. Employers who have not yet begun or completed their audit and review of their employee classifications should immediately start the process … Continue Reading
The U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) on Sept. 24, 2019, announced a final rule raising the annual minimum salary requirements for the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) overtime exemptions for executive, administrative, and professional employees. The final rule, effective Jan. 1, 2020, will significantly impact businesses. Experts predict the rule could result in the reclassification … Continue Reading
On July 24, 2019, the city of Chicago enacted the Chicago Fair Workweek Ordinance, intended to “enact and enforce fair and equitable employment scheduling practices in the City of Chicago…” Most provisions of the Ordinance go into effect on July 1, 2020. The Ordinance covers employers primarily engaged in building services, health care, hotel, manufacturing, … Continue Reading
Our January 2019 GT Benefits and Compensation Alert addressed the unprecedented level of potential liability for compliance failures in 401(k) and other retirement plans and the importance of performing a plan compliance review and correcting plan document or operational failures before an IRS auditor knocks on the door. Doing nothing and playing the audit lottery … Continue Reading
On March 26, 2019, in a 5-2 ruling, the Court of Appeals ruled in favor of providers in a critical decision affecting home health care. Andryeyeva v. N.Y. Health Care, Inc. and Moreno v. Future Care Health Servs. et al. was a joint appeal in a case that threatened to eviscerate an important economic constraint … Continue Reading
The U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) on March 7, 2019, issued a new proposed rule raising the annual minimum salary requirements for the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) overtime exemptions for executive, administrative, and professional employees. Under the new rule, the salary level for these “white collar” exemptions will increase from $23,660 per year ($455 per week) … Continue Reading
There are myriad special rules for employers operating in California, and even more were signed into law last term. 2018 was Jerry Brown’s last year of his second “two-term” round as governor. Both legislatively and judicially, 2018 was a busy year, with the legislature sending more than 1,000 bills to the governor. This GT Alert … Continue Reading
On Jan. 15, 2019, U.S. District Judge William J. Martini ruled that New Jersey’s newly minted Diane B. Allen Equal Pay Act (NJEPA), enacted April 24, 2018, and by its terms effective July 1, 2018, “is not retroactively applicable to conduct occurring prior to its effective date.” Perrotto v. Morgan Advanced Materials, PLC. While Judge … Continue Reading
How confident are you that your company’s retirement plans are being run in accordance with all legal requirements under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA) and the Internal Revenue Code (IRC)? Are you comfortable with the integrity of the annual representations made to your plan auditor that key benefit-plan controls are in place to … Continue Reading
Congress passed the Eliminating Kickbacks in Recovery Act (the Act) in 2018 to prevent “patient brokering” in treatment for substance abuse disorders. The Act imposes criminal penalties against anyone who knowingly and willfully “solicits or receives any remuneration . . . in return for referring a patient or patronage to a recovery home, clinical treatment … Continue Reading
On July 18, 2018, Governor Brown signed AB 2282, the Fair Pay Act Bill, into law to clarify Labor Code sections 432.3 and 1197.5 (also known as the California Equal Pay Act), which collectively dictate how employers can use salary history information of employees and applicants for employment. Existing law prohibits California employers from asking … Continue Reading
On June 28, 2018, Massachusetts Governor Baker signed into law “An Act Relative to Minimum Wage, Paid Family Medical Leave, and the Sales Tax Holiday.” The new law will gradually increase the minimum wage over the next five years; phase-out premium Sunday pay for retail employees; and create a paid family and medical leave program … Continue Reading
The day before Equal Pay Day, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, sitting en banc, ruled that employers defending claims under the Equal Pay Act cannot rely on workers’ past salaries in any respect in trying to justify pay disparities between women and men. Aileen Rizo v. Jim Yovino, 16-15372, 2018 WL … Continue Reading
Employers with operations in Pennsylvania should beware that a recent Pennsylvania Superior Court opinion confirmed what federal courts in Pennsylvania previously predicted: Pennsylvania law entitles certain employees to more overtime pay than federal law. On Dec. 22, 2017, Judge Jeffery Moulton ruled that the Pennsylvania Minimum Wage Act (PMWA) entitles a nonexempt, salaried employee to … Continue Reading
The New York Paid Family Leave law (NYPFL), which becomes effective Jan. 1, 2018, mandates that private employers provide coverage for certain types of employee leave. The benefits will be administered and payments made by the employer’s disability carrier (or by the employer if self-insured), in the same manner as disability benefits. Funding of the … Continue Reading
This year, New York City and New York State advanced a series of legislative and regulatory proposals affecting New York’s businesses and their employees. Following four public hearings across the state, the New York State Department of Labor (DOL) proposed regulations that would expand the current “call-in” regulations by requiring two weeks’ advance notice of … Continue Reading
On July 1, 2017, Arizona’s new sick leave law goes into effect and employers with even one employee in Arizona may need assistance to navigate the new laws and to review and revise policies, practices, and recordkeeping to comply. As a mere start, there are seven key aspects of this new law that Arizona employers … Continue Reading
What does Winston Churchill have to do with California wage and hour requirements? Well, the “shot” at employers in Soto v. Motel 6 Operating L.P. at the California Court of Appeal was whether, because California vacation pay cannot be forfeited and must be paid out at termination, it therefore follows that the value of the … Continue Reading
On Aug. 1, 2016, Massachusetts Governor Baker signed into law the “Act to Establish Pay Equity.” The new law is intended to address the gender wage gap by strengthening the pay disparity prohibitions under existing law. The Pay Equity Act also provides employers the opportunity to assert an affirmative defense to wage claims based on … Continue Reading
In two long-awaited decisions, the Florida Supreme Court declared several provisions of the state’s workers’ compensation statutes unconstitutional, weakening legislative reforms approved in 1994 and 2003 intended to curb the system’s growing costs and higher premiums for employers and businesses. The rulings, in Castellanos v. Next Door Company and Westphal v. City of St. Petersburg … Continue Reading
As we previously discussed here, the United States Department of Labor (DOL) recently changed the Fair Labor Standards Act’s (FLSA’s or the Act’s) Salary Level and Salary Basis tests for the white collar exemptions to the Act’s overtime requirement. Effective Dec. 1, 2016, employees must be paid at least $47,476 annually and $913 per week … Continue Reading
Some important Supreme Court cases are hard to accurately capture in a sound bite, and this is one of them. In a narrow holding, the Supreme Court issued a 6-2 decision in Tyson Foods, Inc. v. Bouaphakeo, 577 U.S. ___ (2016), addressing class claims for overtime compensation certified under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 23 … Continue Reading
