Wage and Hour

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In an issue of first impression, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit held that paid time off (“PTO”) is not a form of salary under the Fair Labor Standards Act (“FLSA”) and, therefore, deductions from a salaried employee’s PTO balance do not violate the Act. Higgins v. Bayada Home Health Care Inc.…

The U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) has issued guidance on the application of the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) and Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) to employees who telework from home or from another location away from the employer’s facility. Field Assistance Bulletin (FAB) 2023-1, released on February 9, 2023, is directed to agency…

Although not yet officially announced, Secretary of Labor Marty Walsh is expected to leave the Biden Administration soon, to become the Executive Director of the National Hockey League (NHL) Players Association. Secretary Walsh has served as the head of the Department of Labor (DOL) since the beginning of the Biden Administration in 2021.

During Secretary…

On January 23, 2023, President Biden re-nominated Jessica Looman to formally become the next Director of the Wage and Hour Division (WHD) of the Department of Labor (DOL). Ms. Looman originally was nominated for the position in August 2022 and made it out of the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions in late…

Since the COVID-19 pandemic began, thousands of pandemic-related lawsuits, including hundreds of putative class or collective actions, have been filed — and the number continues to grow. A large percentage of those lawsuits involve wage and hour claims, centered around issues including, but not limited to, failure to pay for pre-work COVID-19 screening and testing…

On October 13, 2022, the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) published a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM), seeking to revise the standard for determining whether a worker is an employee or “independent contractor” under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA). The NPRM proposes to withdraw the current regulations, issued during the last days of…

On October 12, 2022, the Supreme Court held oral argument to address the decision of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit in Hewitt v. Helix Energy Sols. Group, Inc., 15 F.4th 289 (5th Cir. 2021), cert. granted, No. 21-984 (U.S. May 2, 2022), and a corresponding split among the circuit…

Washington State’s Department of Labor and Industries recently released a draft administrative policy with updated guidance on the modified pay transparency requirements beginning January 1, 2023. This draft policy aims to clarify issues raised by stakeholders in the feedback process for the development of the final administrative policy. The draft policy gives some new insight…

Although the plaintiff cable technicians, who were paid by the completed job and not by the hour, were covered employees under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), they nonetheless were bona fide commissioned employees and therefore exempt from the overtime requirements of Act, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals recently ruled. Accordingly, the district court’s…

The mere fact that the plaintiff was building livestock enclosures on farms did not necessarily preclude his entitlement to overtime pay under the agricultural exemption of the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals has held. Therefore, the district court improperly dismissed the plaintiff’s complaint. Vanegas v. Signet Builders, Inc.,…