Does the time it takes for a computer to start up count towards your work hours? According to the Ninth Circuit, it does. And while this may not seem like a great amount of time, the minutes required to boot up a computer can add up to significant pay. There may be...
Once considered a staple of the American workforce, time and a half is under constant attack from employers who are determined to find ways around the law. Knowing how time and a half (overtime) pay should work is the responsibility of every employee. But protecting the right to time and a half...
Paying workers on time in California isn’t just a good business practice; it’s the law. State legislators have long recognized that late payments cause serious financial disruption to a person’s life and essentially amount to wage theft. Workers who are not paid on time can recover monetary penalties...
The rights of employees don’t just include being paid a fair and legal wage. Often, issues regarding the misuse of employee data emerge with serious implications for the privacy interests of workers. Illinois is one particular example of where workers are frequently subjected to the improper collection and distribution of their sensitive...
Piece rate pay is a method of paying employees based on the amount of work they do. Although this method of payment is legal and can be lucrative for employees, there are unfortunately many cases in which employers attempt to use piece rate to skirt overtime wage laws. If your employer uses...
There has been much controversy in recent years over the Department of Labor's (DOL) so-called 80/20 rule, under which an employer is required to pay a tipped employee the full minimum wage for non-tip-producing work if the employee performed such work for over 20% of the work week. Employers complained of...
The overtime laws make a distinction between managers and non-managers. But the threshold set by the government to be considered a manager is fairly low, giving employers the chance to exploit the rules and assign artificial managerial titles to regular workers. This, in turn, allows employers to skirt overtime laws. Unfortunately, employers...
A common employer tactic is to assign work tasks to employees while they are “off the clock” - that is, to tell workers to perform their job duties either before or after their shifts. Of course, this amounts to nothing more than wage theft by requiring that unpaid work be done. One...
An investigation confirmed that Kentucky-based Heine Brothers Coffee was improperly handling tips paid to employees by allowing managers to take a portion of the tips. The incident is noteworthy both in the sum of money paid and the fact that such practices often go on for years, unless...
As a general matter, employees who are covered by the Fair Labor Standard Act’s (FLSA’s) overtime provisions must be paid time and a half for all hours worked over 40 during a week. That means non-exempt workers are entitled to be paid one and a half times their...
