Michigan Labor & Employment Law Blog
Every employer and HR department has reviewed wage and hour laws, but even for the most experienced companies, a few common questions always come up.
- How much do I have to pay?
- What will wages look like in the next few years?
- Does a bonus affect overtime?
- What type of damages could I face if I don’t pay employee's properly?
- How do I stay out of the crosshairs of the government?
Some of the answers might not be as straightforward as you’d think. Below, we’ve put together some of the most important points on the basics of wage and hour laws and what employers need to know.
A Federal court in Texas issued a temporary injunction yesterday against the new Department of Labor (“DOL”) overtime regulations that were set to go into effect December 1st.
The injunction follows court arguments heard on November 16th in a lawsuit brought by 21 states alleging the new DOL’s rules exceeds the DOL’s authority and violated administrative law requirements. The new regulations propose to raise the salary threshold for exempt employees from $23,660 to $47,476 and provide for an automatic increase to the threshold every three years.
In a stunning decision, a Federal Court denied overtime claims of a salaried union organizer for the Laborers Union in New York City.
The organizer normally would spend his time trying to persuade non-union employees to sign union cards to organize their employer. Part of his duty was running picket lines. And typical with any picket line over the last 20 years, there was an inflatable rat on the picket line maybe 15 to 20 feet tall. This gentleman, Mr. Krupinski, argued that any time he spent setting up, operating or disassembling inflatable rats involved manual labor and therefore was above and beyond his normal exempt status as a paid organizer. The Court threw this out quickly concluding that even though he might have done some manual labor, it did not per se defeat his normal “exempt” status. The Court concluded actually, that by his “interfacing with non-union workers, he engaged in a form of marketing and public outreach, which disqualified him from overtime eligibility."
The law of unintended consequences by the do-gooders in Washington may seriously harm the very employees they wanted to help by changing an 80-year Federal Labor Law system for overtime hours and compensation.
The old salary threshold rules exempted employees with annual earnings of $23,660; if you earn that much annually, an employer does not have to pay you overtime. Now, the proposed changes jump that amount to $50,440 annually. Additionally, annual automatic increases to the $50,440 number are scheduled to take place in the future.
