Citing the need “to preserve the status quo, prevent the collapse of the home healthcare industry, and avoid institutionalizing patients who could be cared for at home,” the New York Department of Labor (NYDOL) has issued emergency regulations to ensure consistency with longstanding opinion letters issued by the Department and to clarify that time spent … Continue Reading
Refusing to compensate employees for short breaks is prohibited by the FLSA, the Third Circuit has confirmed. Thus, an employer’s “flexible time” policy, under which employees were not paid if they logged off of their computers for more than 90 seconds, fails to comply with the Act when employees take breaks of twenty minutes or … Continue Reading
Under Washington State’s meal break statute, an employer must provide an employee working five or more consecutive hours a 30-minute meal period, although employees may waive the meal break under state law. In answering questions certified to it by a federal district court, the Washington Supreme Court first explained that the statute does not provide … Continue Reading
Time spent by employees in meal and other breaks continues to prompt litigation against public and private sector employers. In a recent decision, the Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit ruled that corrections officers at a Pennsylvania prison failed to allege a violation of the FLSA by challenging the County’s failure to compensate them … Continue Reading
Like all compensation methods, piece rate compensation plans – under which an employee is compensated based on the number of “pieces” he or she generates or completes – must be analyzed for wage-and-hour compliance. For example, under federal law, minimum wage generally is due for all hours worked, and there are recordkeeping obligations, although some … Continue Reading
Unionized employers often enter into agreements with employees regarding compensation for particular hours or break periods. These agreements are reached through bargaining for the mutual benefit of the employer and union members. At times, such agreements can potentially be in tension with Department of Labor regulations regarding hours of work and break periods. The Wisconsin … Continue Reading
Hospitals and other medical service providers continue to face waves of wage-and-hour claims concerning meal break practices, with non-exempt care providers alleging that they were unable to take unpaid meal periods, or that those meal periods were otherwise compensable. A new decision from Judge Jeffrey L. Schmehl of the Eastern District of Pennsylvania rejects a … Continue Reading
Confronting a novel issue of state law in the wake of the California Supreme Court’s 2012 decision addressing California’s meal-and-rest break requirements, an appellate panel of the California Court of Appeal’s Second District ruled that a security firm did not violate rest break requirements where its security guards were “on call” during the required rest … Continue Reading
Per FLSA regulations, break periods between 5 to 20 minutes generally are considered compensable. 29 C.F.R. § 785.18. While state wage-and-hour laws typically borrow extensively from the FLSA’s regulatory framework, a new decision from a Missouri Federal Judge highlights that many of the vagaries of state law are unsettled or unclear, rejecting Plaintiffs’ motion for … Continue Reading
In 2010, the FLSA was amended to require covered employers to provide a time and place for nursing mothers who are non-exempt employees to express breast milk. In the first appellate decision interpreting the provision (29 U.S.C. § 207(r)(1)), the Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit has ruled that an employee who was afforded both … Continue Reading
As previously reported here, the recent Health Care Reform legislation includes a provision, which became effective immediately upon passage of the Act, requiring employers to provide breaks for employees to express milk for nursing children. The USDOL issued a fact sheet this week explaining its view of an employer’s obligations under this enactment. The highlights … Continue Reading
On March 23, President Obama signed a bill which amended the FLSA to require most covered employers to provide breaks to mothers for the purposes of breastfeeding (as well as furnish private space for them to do so). While the new law does not require that nursing mothers be paid for such break time, state law may. … Continue Reading
Over the past year or so, employers in the health care industry, particularly in the Northeast, have been – and continue to be – targeted in a number of lawsuits alleging improper payment of hours worked by their hourly employees. Specifically, these lawsuits allege that certain health care facilities automatically deducted time for meal breaks, … Continue Reading
