Employers Cannot Inquire into Applicant’s Pay History

The Minnesota Legislature was sure to keep HR professionals/businesses and their employment law attorneys busy Q4 of 2023! If you’re wondering why my blog went silent…read on! Now that I’m out from under that rock, if you are from another state, or new to MN, here is what

On January 9, 2024, the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) announced its much-anticipated final rule, revising the DOL’s guidance (this is my nice way of saying “administrative flip flopping”) on how to determine if a worker is an employee or an independent contractor under the federal Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA).  The final rule

The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) and U.S. Department of Labor’s Wage and Hour Division (WHD) signed an agreement on September 13, 2023 to immediately start collaborating between the two agencies to share information, coordinate investigations and enforcement, cross-train personnel, and conduct joint outreach and public education efforts.

The Memorandum of Understanding (MOU)

After nearly 40 years, the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) has updated its regulations and issued a Final Rule for the Davis-Bacon and Related Acts (DBRA), effective October 23, 2023. The Davis-Bacon Act, originally enacted in 1931, requires contractors and subcontractors performing construction work on federal contracts to pay their workers at least the

Here we go again! On August 30, 2023, the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) announced a proposed rule to raise the minimum salary threshold requirement for employees to be exempt from minimum wage and overtime provisions under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA). You may recall my 2016 blog post when the DOL issued

Rounding of time is nothing new. For payroll simplicity, employers have rounded time up and down for decades, beginning when we actually put a timesheet into a punch clock to “punch the time” (yes, I did!). To that extent, the US Department of Labor (DOL) has long permitted employers to round the times employees “clock

If you’ve read my recent blog about the new paid sick and safe time (required January 1, 2024), you may be wondering how that affects your business if you are a federal contractor. You are right – you are special! Under the federal contractor requirements established pursuant to Executive Order 13706, you must provide

Unless you’ve been hiding under a rock, you know that in just a few short weeks, August 1, 2023, recreational cannabis (marijuana) will be lawful in Minnesota (under state law). However, recent news has also highlighted the fact that it may take up to 18 months for new cannabis dispensaries to obtain a license to

Effective January 1, 2024, Minnesota employers (including employment agencies and labor organizations) are prohibited from inquiring into a job applicant’s pay history (prior or current wage, salary, earnings, benefits) “for the purpose of determining compensation or benefits”. However, applicants may voluntarily disclose it (without being asked or prompted). If they do this, employers may