Fair Labor Standards Act

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)

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

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

On October 13, 2022, the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) released a proposed new rule regarding the classification of independent contractors under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA). If enacted, the rule will narrow the definition of “independent contractor”, having significant implications for workers and employers.

Background

In January 2021, the DOL (under President Trump)

If you are a home health care provider (personal care attendants, community first service and support workers), the Minnesota Department of Labor & Industry (MNDOLI) has created a new webpage for information related to employment practices in your industry. This includes a general video on:

  • Overtime (follow federal (40+ hrs/wk) and state law (48+ hrs/wk)

On August 5, the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) announced it has settled yet another matter whereby a Golden Valley, MN home healthcare business paid only straight time to its employees regardless of how many hours they worked. In this case it was related to skilled nursing, private duty, personal aide and therapy services. In

On July 1, 2021, the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) issued yet another press release regarding recovery (this time $1.5 million) of back wages for 242 home healthcare workers (this is not a MN employer, but this is a nationwide DOL effort). In this instance, according to the DOL, the employer paid straight-time wages for