Employment News

With our nation’s complex labor laws, it’s not easy to know whether you’re being paid fairly for all your hard work. Key sticking points can include overtime pay and non-work activities encouraged by your employer. Fortunately, new guidance sheds light on some of those concerns. At the end of August, the U.S. Department of Labor posted a series of DOL opinion letters addressing compensation issues related to employer-sponsored wellness activities, overtime pay and volunteering. The letters … [Read more...]

Women have been chasing workplace equality for decades, yet despite marked strides, gender pay gap discrimination persists and pay parity has remained an elusive prize. A recent court ruling, however, should help change that. Last year, women’s earnings amounted to 82 percent of men’s, a Pew Research Center analysis found. The reasons for the discrepancy are complex, ranging from measurable factors such as education level to more abstract causes like persisting gender discrimination. But … [Read more...]

Should your paycheck reflect work travel or short rest breaks during the workday? New federal guidance offers clarity about travel time pay for hourly employees and an employee’s rights. The U.S. Department of Labor recently released a pair of opinion letters about those topics, jumping back into the longstanding practice for the first time since 2010 (the agency stuck with general guidance in the interim). The letters answer questions received about how the department’s Wage and Hour … [Read more...]

The California Supreme Court has issued a landmark decision that will make it much harder for companies to classify workers as independent contractors – and to avoid paying them wages and overtime. In what’s being called “a game-changer,” the decision establishes a new independent contractor test in California for determining whether a worker is a contractor or an employee. Background: Dynamex Inc. is a package and document delivery company that operates throughout the United States and … [Read more...]

Have you been trying to switch jobs but for an inexplicable reason can’t seem to gain traction? If you suspect that your current employer may have some sort of arrangement with your prospective future employer, you may be looking at a no-poach agreement, and the law is on your side. What are “no-poach” agreements? “No-poach” understandings between businesses essentially declare a truce on hiring employees or executives from one another. They are more common than you might suppose, and they’re … [Read more...]