David Letterman is retired, but the end of every year brings a new, or not so new, top 10 list of wage and hour violations. The list is prepared by the NH Department of Labor’s Wage and Hour Division, which dutifully keeps track of the various infractions committed by employers. Large and small employers alike

The wait is over; well sort of.  In March 2014 President Obama directed the US Department of Labor (“DOL”) to review the so-called “White Collar” exemptions under the Fair Labor Standards Act (“FLSA”) to determine whether they were in need of revision having last been updated in 2004.  Today the DOL announced a new proposed

Every year the New Hampshire Department of Labor issues a list of the top ten violations found by its inspection division in the previous year.  Remarkably, the list does not change much from year to year.  The culprits move up and down and switch places, but the same mistakes seem to be made in perpetuity.

Photo Credit: Daniel Logo via Flickr (CC by 2.0)

In a unanimous decision, the US Supreme Court once again addressed the issue of whether time the employer requires an employee to do something is compensable under the Fair Labor Standards Act.  Integrity Staffing required its warehouse workers whose job it was to retrieve inventory and package it for shipment to undergo an antitheft security screening before leaving the warehouse each day. During the screening, employees removed items such as wallets, keys, and belts and passed through metal detectors.  Employees filed suit for unpaid wages arguing that the time spent waiting for and being screened was compensable, in part because they were required by the employer to do so.
Continue Reading Integrity Staffing Solutions v. Busk, et. al: US Supreme Court Reverses Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit: Warehouse Workers’ Time spent in Post-Shift Security Screen Not Compensable

The NH Department of Labor and the US Department of Labor entered into a memorandum of understanding (MOU) for the purpose of preventing misclassification of workers as independent contractors or some other nonemployee status.  The MOU calls for the state and federal agencies to share information and to coordinate their efforts of enforcement.  It became

Photo Credit: Chris Potter via Flickr (CC by 2.0)

Governor Maggie Hassan recently signed two bills into law that may have significant impacts on New Hampshire businesses.  The first, HB 1188 , which takes effect on January 1, 2015, prohibits employers from discharging, disciplining, or otherwise discriminating against an employee because

Perhaps one of the biggest and most unexpected pieces of news for employers came on March 13, 2014 when President Obama signed a memorandum instructing the USDOL to undertake its first overhaul of the FLSA since 2004.  The agency is charged with the responsibility to update the regulations of who qualifies for overtime pay.  The