Adam M. Hamel

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In 2010, Massachusetts enacted sweeping reforms to its criminal offender record information (CORI) system.  Among the changes was a provision prohibiting most employers from asking about criminal history on initial employment applications.  The measure is known as “ban the box” because it outlaws the once-common practice of inquiring about criminal background by including a checkbox on employment applications.
Continue Reading Massachusetts Attorney General Steps Up Enforcement of “Ban the Box” Law

Back in September, we reported that the Trump Administration had abandoned the appeal of an injunction blocking new overtime rules from going into effect.  That action effectively killed the Obama Administration’s effort to update and expand the overtime rule by raising the “salary level test” for executive, administrative, and professional workers from $455 per week to $913 per week.  At the same time, the Trump Administration signaled that a scaled-down update of the overtime rule was on the way … eventually.
Continue Reading DOL Pushes Release of Proposed Changes to Overtime Rule to January 2019

The Federal Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) requires that covered employees who work more than forty hours in a week be paid overtime.  However, the statute contains a number of exemptions removing certain groups of employees from the law’s protections.  These “exempt” employees are not entitled to overtime pay when they work more than forty hours in a week, whereas “non-exempt” employees must be paid at the higher overtime rate for excess hours.
Continue Reading Supreme Court Expands FLSA Exemptions to Include Auto Dealership Service Advisors

Photo: Yagan Kiely via Flickr (CC by SA 2.0)

Technological advances over the past several years including laptops, smartphones, and widely-available wi-fi, have made it a lot easier for people to get work done remotely.  And while many appreciate the flexibility and increased productivity that these advances provide, some lament that the ability to work anywhere, anytime has morphed into an expectation to work everywhere, all the time.Continue Reading Should Employees Have a Right to Disconnect?

This week, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court ruled that unused accrued sick time does not constitute “wages” that must be paid upon termination under the Massachusetts Wage Act.  This decision, Mui v. Massachusetts Port Authority, resolves a previously unsettled question in Massachusetts wage and hour law.
Continue Reading Massachusetts High Court Rules That Unused Accrued Sick Time Is Not “Wages”

Last week, the Department of Labor issued new guidance on whether interns are “employees” covered by the Fair Labor Standards Act’s minimum wage and overtime provisions.  In the updated guidance, the DOL has adopted the “primary beneficiary test,” first applied by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit in 2015, and used by a growing number of courts in recent years.
Continue Reading DOL Issues New Guidance on Unpaid Internships

In a brief court filing on Tuesday, the Trump Administration dropped its appeal of the injunction preventing the Obama Administration’s new overtime rule from going into effect.

The new overtime rule, which was supposed to have gone into effect last December, would have raised the “salary level test” for executive, administrative, and professional workers from $455 per week to $913 per week. 
Continue Reading Overtime Rule Update: Trump Administration Drops Its Appeal

A few weeks ago, the Department of Labor filed a brief with the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals in which it backed away from the $913 per week salary level test set in the 2016 amendments to the FLSA overtime rules.  In that brief, the DOL stated that it would soon publish a request for information seeking public input to be used by the DOL in drafting a new proposed overtime rule.
Continue Reading DOL Issues Request for Information on Changes to Overtime Rules