On April 23, 2024, the U.S. Department of Labor published a final rule raising the minimum weekly salary many exempt employees must be paid to qualify as exempt from overtime under the Fair Labor Standards Act.  The new rule raises the salary basis threshold for executive, administrative, professional and computer professional exempt employees from $684

One of the biggest criticisms I have of the FLSA is that it provides no safe harbor or protection for an employer, who having realized it made a wage and hour mistake, to voluntarily self-report and correct its mistake. Instead, it can encourage employers who learn of a potential FLSA violation that has not otherwise been discovered to continue its current practice hoping that the violation will not be discovered.  This week the U.S. Department of Labor announced its Payroll Audit Independent Determination (PAID) program that takes a step in providing employers with an incentive to voluntarily identify and self-correct wage and hour violations.  The stated purpose of the program is to
Continue Reading Department of Labor Rolls Out Pilot Program for Employers to Correct Inadvertent Wage and Hour Violations

The U.S. Department of Labor recently abandoned its six-factor internship test in favor of the seven-factor primary beneficiary test utilized by most Courts. The primary benefit test adopts a temporal limitation for the internship that was not in the old six-factor test and incorporates two elements linking eligibility to the intern’s education programs and academic

Today, a Texas federal judge issued a nationwide preliminary injunction blocking the implementation of the U.S. Department of Labor’s final rule imposing an increased salary level to qualify for the administrative, professional, executive and highly-compensated exemptions to overtime.  Short of an order staying the district judge’s injunction, the DOL’s rule will be on hold, nationwide,

This week the DOL announced changes to the white collar overtime exemptions that take effect December 1, 2016. Every employment lawyer with a newsletter, blog or soapbox has written some summary of the new regulations. And while the regulations only effect the executive, administrative, professional and high compensated exemptions, Daniel Schwartz, a Connecticut employment

Last night the U.S. Department of Labor announced details of its long-awaited Final Rule on changes to the regulations interpreting the overtime exemptions to the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA).  The FLSA is the federal law requiring most employers to pay minimum wages and overtime to nonexempt employees.  The Final Rule raises the minimum salary