Department of Labor

Subscribe to Department of Labor via RSS

On February 1, 2019 the Keene Sentinel reported that a Massachusetts construction company had been hit with more than $64,000 in fines after an audit conducted by the New Hampshire Department of Labor. Although the bulk of the fines were related to the misclassification of employees as independent contractors, there were also a number of recordkeeping violations found.

The Keene Sentinel article devotes significant attention to the problems of trying to classify individuals as independent contractors under NH state law, a very difficult burden to meet. The result of the audit and the fines imposed on the business, however, showcase how difficult it is for businesses who typically do not operate in a state to establish a workforce there and be in compliance with state laws.Continue Reading Trials of Massachusetts Company Building Keene Hotel Signals Warning to Businesses with Multi-State Workforces

During the month of September, the Department of Labor will be holding a series of “Listening Sessions” throughout the country in order to hear public comments about planned changes to the overtime rules under the Fair Labor Standards Act.

On this blog, we have followed the long and winding path of the years-long efforts to update the FLSA’s overtime rules (see our posts on the subject here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here).  To recap, in 2014, the Obama Administration set out to overhaul the overtime rules, and, after nearly two years, issued a set of final regulations, which were to have gone into effect on December 1, 2016. Among other things, these regulations would have increased the minimum salary threshold for exempt workers from $455 per week to $913.  This change would have dramatically increased the number of workers who would be classified as non-exempt, and therefore eligible to earn overtime pay.  However, after President Trump’s election, and just days before the regulations were to take effect, a federal court issued an injunction halting the changes.  After almost a year of litigation and uncertainty, the Trump Administration finally abandoned the Obama Administration’s regulations and went back to the drawing board and started the entire rulemaking process over from scratch.Continue Reading The Department of Labor Wants to Hear from Employers about Planned Changes to the Overtime Rules

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

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

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

On June 27, 2017, U.S. Secretary of Labor Alexander Acosta announced that the U.S. Department of Labor (USDOL) will reinstate the issuance of opinion letters.  You might be wondering why this decision is important to businesses.  The answer is two-fold: (1) opinion letters provide interpretation of the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) and Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) so that employers understand their rights and responsibilities under the law; and (2) opinion letters may be relied upon as a good faith defense to wage claims arising under the FLSA.
Continue Reading US DOL Reinstates Opinion Letters

The US Department of Labor (“DOL”) announced today that Secretary of Labor Alexander Acosta has withdrawn the DOL’s 2015 and 2016 informal guidance on joint employment and independent contractors.  We previously reported on these issues when the guidance was published under the prior Secretary.  For more information on the guidance please refer to our posts…