Tag Archives: DOL

Employers Don’t Have to Raise Exempt Employees’ Salaries to $58K

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On Friday, November 15, a federal judge in the Eastern District of Texas ordered a nationwide halt to the rule increasing the minimum salary that was set to go into effect on January 1, 2025, so that employers no longer have to raise the salary level of employees who are exempt from overtime to $58,656. Instead, the salary minimum level will return to the 2019 level of $35,568 for exempt employees.  

That means that the salary minimum that went into effect on July 1, 2024, of $43,880 per year also was thrown out, but I would not suggest taking back that raise if you just gave it to an exempt employee this summer.

 In addition, the regulation establishing an automatic increase in the minimum salary every three years was overturned by the judge.

The Biden Administration could appeal Friday’s injunction on the salary minimum increase, but it would be futile. The case was heard in Texas, meaning an appeal would have to go to the Fifth Circuit and then the U.S. Supreme Court, neither of which would rule in favor of these increased salary minimums because those courts are packed with conservative Trump appointees. And as soon as President-elect Trump takes office, his administration will abandon the appeal anyway.

It is still very important that employers comply with the Fair Labor Standards Act requirements before making an employee exempt and foregoing overtime pay for that employee. Under the FLSA, which has been the law since 1938, an employee must be paid overtime for all work over 40 hours performed in any one workweek. Paying an employee by the hour and paying overtime is the default category for paying all employees.

Only if a particular employee meets two requirements can he/she legally be paid on a salary basis (and not be paid overtime). Those two requirements are now once again:

  • The employee is paid at least a minimum salary of $684 per week (which is $35,568 per year); and
  • The employee performs the duties of a white-collar executive, professional, or administrator.

The duties test is the much harder test to pass than the salary minimum. For example, someone you are calling a manager must supervise at least two full-time employees and primarily spend most of his/her time in management activities to actually be exempt from overtime. That eliminates almost all fast food assistant managers, working foremen in the construction industry, and others that you may think you could pay on a salary.

Continue reading Employers Don’t Have to Raise Exempt Employees’ Salaries to $58K →

New FLSA Minimum Salary Requirements

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If you pay any employees on salary instead of hourly, as an employer you need to review new regulations released today by the United States Department of Labor, requiring that the salary you pay to any exempt employee is at least $43,888.00 beginning on July 1, 2024. That minimum increases to $58,656.00 on January 1, 2025. Those are substantial increases from $35,568.00, the salary minimum currently required by the Fair Labor Standards Act (“FLSA”), which governs minimum wage and overtime.

If you aren’t paying an employee by the hour, plus overtime pay for each hour over 40 worked in a 7-day workweek, then you must prove the following about that salaried employee:

  1. The employee is paid a recurring salary regardless of the hours worked; and
  2. The amount that the employee is paid must amount to at least $844 per week beginning on July 1, 2024 and $1128 per week beginning on January 1, 2025; and
  3. The salaried employee must primarily perform executive, administrative or professional duties (commonly referred to as the white-collar duties).

These exemptions for salaried, white-collar workers are the exception to the overtime rules required by the FLSA, and the burden is on the employer to show that the salaried employee meets all of these requirements or the business will owe the employee unpaid overtime (plus punitive damages and possible penalties) for not paying overtime.

FLSA has been the law since the 1940’s, but the salary minimum amount to meet the exemptions has increased over time. The Trump Administration increased the salary amount in 2019, and it has stayed there for five years. The Department of Labor’s new rule will make those increases automatic every three years, meaning that on July 1, 2027, you can expect another increase in the salary minimum amount if you still want to claim that the employee is exempt from the overtime requirements.

In addition to meeting the FLSA salary minimum requirement, your employee must also perform white-collar duties to qualify for the overtime exemption. The duties tests are harder to meet than you might expect. For example, you may believe that an assistant manager is an “executive”, but the FLSA duties test says that employee must have the power to hire and fire and must personally supervise at least two full-time employees, as well as being in charge of a recognizable store, division or branch of your business to be considered exempt. Most assistant managers don’t meet those requirements. Only the general manager does in many circumstances.

In addition, the new regulations increase the FLSA salary minimum for “highly compensated employees”. The 2019 threshold for highly-compensated employees currently says that any employee making a salary of at least $107,432.00 per year is exempt as long as the employee is performing non-manual work and that employee performs at least one other exempt duty customarily and regularly (such as managing two employees or performing duties of a professional such as a CPA). The salary minimum for highly compensated employees increases to $132,964.00 on July 1, 2024. On January 1, 2025, it will increase again to $151,164.00.

So what do businesses need to do to get in compliance?

Continue reading New FLSA Minimum Salary Requirements →

Vaccine/Testing Mandate Voided by Supreme Court for Businesses with 100+ Employees; Healthcare Workers Mandate Upheld

COVID-19, Medical, Personnel Policies, , , ,

On Thursday, January 13, 2022, the United States Supreme Court completely voided the OSHA Emergency Temporary Standard that required employers with 100+ employees to institute this week a vaccine or testing requirement on its employees. However, the Supremes also upheld the OSHA requirement that any size of healthcare facilities that accepts Medicare or Medicaid payments must vaccinate their workers.

The Large Employer Rule Struck Down

When addressing the OSHA ETS for large employers, the Supreme Court majority stated that the Secretary of Labor had acted too broadly. The six conservative justices ruled that “Applicants are likely to succeed on the merits of their claim that the Secretary lacked authority to impose the mandate. Administrative agencies are creatures of statute. They accordingly possess only the authority that Congress has provided. The Secretary has ordered 84 million Americans to either obtain a COVID–19 vaccine or undergo weekly medical testing at their own expense. This is no “everyday exercise of federal power.”

They went on to emphasize this opinion that “Although Congress has indisputably given OSHA the power to regulate occupational dangers, it has not given that agency the power to regulate public health more broadly. Requiring the vaccination of 84 million Americans, selected simply because they work for employers with more than 100 employees, certainly falls in the latter category.

Technically, the mandate is “stayed” pending more legal action in the Sixth Circuit and possible writs of certiorari back to the Supreme Court. However, for all practical purposes, large employers can stop their efforts to determine the vaccination status of employees, stop requiring masks of all unvaccinated employees, forget about workplace testing for COVID-19 beginning in February and withdraw the written policies they just put into place.

Healthcare Mandate Gets Approval of Supreme Court

Healthcare facilities, however, have to get into compliance with the CMS mandate. The 5-4 decision states that the Secretary of Health and Human Services does have the power to require vaccinations of healthcare workers (except those with medical or religious exemptions). “Ensuring that  providers take steps to avoid transmitting  a dangerous virus to  their patients is consistent with the fundamental principle of the  medical profession:  first,  do  no  harm.  It  would be the very opposite of efficient and effective  administration for  a facility that is supposed to make people well  to  make them sick with COVID–19.”

There has been a stay pending on this mandate in 26 states, including Texas. However, that stay is no longer effective, and 10 million healthcare workers will have to be fully vaccinated or claim a medical or religious exemption (which may make them ineligible to work) in the next six weeks. Unless Health and Human Services updates their schedule, healthcare facilities that received Medicare or Medicaid payments have until January 22 to get a written vaccination mandate in place. By that date employees either have to have had at least one dose of the vaccine or have submitted a medical or religious exemption request.

By February 28, healthcare employees have to be fully vaccinated or have been granted an exemption. And exemptions don’t mean that the employee can keep working. For example, unvaccinated employees may not be able to be involved in direct patient care. Eventually, that could result in no available work for that employee. Employers should get their employment lawyer involved in the exemption process because it can lead to eventual termination of the exempt employees, which has to be done carefully to avoid discrimination claims.

DOL Finalizes New Salary Minimum

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Update: This post from March 2019 has been updated as of September 24, 2019, because on that day the DOL issued the final salary minimum rule, which changed a couple of important items from what was proposed six months ago.

A new federal overtime rule that has been finalized by the U.S. Department of Labor will become effective on January 1, 2020, and employers need to start preparing now to get into compliance.

The final rule requires employers to pay a higher minimum salary to those employees who meet certain white-collar exemptions to the overtime rules of the Fair Labor Standards Act (“FLSA”). Right now, an employer can pay a salaried exempt employee as little as $455 per week ($23,606 annually) and still claim the exemption (and not pay that person overtime) as long as the employee is performing exempt duties, such as executive work or professional work.

On January 1, 2020, the final minimum salary threshold for exempt employees is going to increase to $684 per week ($35,568) annually)(the proposed rule was $5 per week less, so we thought that the annual number was going to be $35,308). That means that if you have any employee whom you are paying on salary in an amount less than $35,568 per year, you as an employer need to spend the rest of 2019 deciding if you will provide that employee with a raise or reclassify that employee as non-exempt and move him to an hourly rate and pay him overtime when he clocks more than 40 hours in any one workweek.

In addition to meeting this increased salary level to $35,568 per year, anyone you are paying on a salary must also actually perform the duties of an exempt employee (the white-collar exemptions: executive, a professional or an administrator). These duties tests are much more difficult to meet than most people think, so don’t just assume that all of your salaried employees are actually exempt. For example, not every “manager” is an “executive exempt employee”, who under the FLSA must have the power to hire and fire and must supervise at least 2 full-time employees, as well as being in charge of a recognizable store, division or branch of your business.

During the rest of 2019, you have time to audit your pay practices to know who you are paying on salary, review their actual job duties to assure that they actually qualify for one of the exemptions, and then confirm that those salaried employees are making at least $684 per week. As you are going through this process, remember that the Equal Pay Act also applies to your salary decisions and you must not violate it when trying to comply with the DOL’s new salary minimum.

And yes, the DOL does measure the salary basis in weekly increments, so the employee must make at least $684 every week, not just averaged out over the year. The final rule does provide employers the ability to make up 10% of the salary basis test with non-discretionary bonuses and commissions. So, if you pay an executive, administrator or professional employee no less than $32,011.20 in yearly salary (divided by 52 weeks) and then the employee earns another $3,556.80 annually in non-discretionary bonuses and commissions (paid on at least a quarterly basis), you will not be in violation of the final rule.

If this proposal gives you a sense of déjà vu, that’s because we went through this process in 2016 when the DOL proposed an increase of the minimum salary for exempt employees of $913 per week ($47,476 annually). That rule was enjoined by a federal judge in East Texas just before it was to take effect and then died in the courts and under the new administration. No such messy reprieve is expected this time with this lower salary threshold, so businesses need to start talking now about properly paying their salaried employees in 2020.

Employer should also be aware that the “highly compensated employee” exemption under the final rule for 2020 has slightly increased. That exemption currently says that any employee making a salary of at least $100,000.00 per year is exempt as long as the employee is performing non-manual work and that employee performs at least one other exempt duty customarily and regularly. The final rule raises that salary threshold for highly-compensated employees to $107,432 per year (the proposed rule was to raise the highly-compensated employee salary minimum to $147,432, which was universally criticized and so reduced by $40,000).

Obviously, if you have to move an employee from exempt status to non-exempt status because of this salary minimum change, you should find a way to clearly communicate that this change is not a demotion, but simply a change in a governmental regulation. You’ll also need to train anyone moving from exempt status to non-exempt status on your timekeeping rules so that all time worked is properly recorded.

Workplaces Must Accommodate A Nursing Mother

Compensation, Discrimination, Employee Rights, Personnel Policies, , , , , , ,

A nursing mother in your workplace has certain employment rights that you as an employer must understand. Until the time that the child is one year old, Texas employers must provide the time and space for the mother to breastfeed the baby (if children are allowed at the workplace) or to express milk to be stored for later.

The federal compensation law, the Fair Labor Standards Act (“FLSA”), was amended in 2010 to require employers to provide nursing mothers with “reasonable” break time to pump breast milk. Employers must realize that there is no one definition of what is “reasonable” that applies to every new mother.

The Department of Labor says in its Fact Sheet #73 regarding Break Time for Nursing Mothers, “employers are required to provide a reasonable amount of break time to express milk as frequently as needed by the nursing mother. The frequency of breaks needed to express milk, as well as the duration of each break, will likely vary.” Speaking from experience, nursing may take 10 minutes, 25 minutes, 40 minutes or even longer and isn’t standardized from mom to mom, day to day, or break to break.

If you provide coffee breaks or meal breaks during the day to other employees and pay them during that break (which the FLSA requires you to do if the break is less than 20 minutes), then you should allow your nursing mothers to use those breaks if convenient and be paid during those breaks just like any other employee.

Otherwise, nursing breaks do not have to be compensated, so you can require a nonexempt (hourly) employee to clock out during the break so that the nursing break isn’t paid. If that means that the employee has to stay longer each day to actually perform work for 40 hours per week, you as an employee can require that extra time. Or you can choose to pay the employee for only the hours worked, which may be less than 40 when lots of nursing breaks are taken.

The easiest way to address compensation is to have a written policy that states that all nursing breaks of 20 minutes or less are paid, but longer breaks are unpaid.

You also have a responsibility as an employer to provide a place for the nursing mother to breastfeed or express milk. That place cannot be a bathroom. The area must be private with a lock on the door or another way to assure that the public and/or coworkers won’t barge in while the employee is nursing or pumping. If you have more than one nursing mother employed at a time, it is common practice to have a sign up or reservation-type system for the room you designate for expressing milk.

The secluded place the employer provides must be functional for expressing milk, meaning it should at least be furnished with a comfortable chair. Many employers provide a small dorm-sized refrigerator and a Sharpee in the nursing area so that the expressed milk can be labelled and dated and kept cool until the new mother can take it home.

Texas allows employers who adopt a new mother-friendly written policy to advertise that it is a “mother-friendly” business. If that “carrot” approach doesn’t convince you, then the “stick” is that failure to provide adequate breaks and a secure place for nursing mothers means that not only will your business be violating the FLSA, but also the employee can bring a sex discrimination or sexual harassment action if you have at least 15 employees.

A federal court has also ruled that breastfeeding is a medical condition related to pregnancy and maternity, so you can also be sued under the Pregnancy Discrimination Act. You must additionally prevent an employee from being retaliated against for exercising her rights as a nursing mother, i.e., you must assure that her supervisor doesn’t give her a poor evaluation or demote her because her nursing rights create some disruption in the office.

Small employers (less than 50) have one defense to these kinds of claims. Continue reading Workplaces Must Accommodate A Nursing Mother →

Strange Exemptions to the Overtime Law

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The new overtime regulations are causing employers to take a closer look at the executive, administrative and professional exemptions from overtime, but did you know that there are a number of strange exemptions that allow you to pay specific employees on a salary and not worry about overtime pay?

These obscure exemptions may have more to do with the strength of certain industry lobbyists back in the 1940’s when the Fair Labor Standards Act (“FLSA”) was passed than they do with any logical reason for exempting these employees. But they are still on the books and may allow a few employers to avoid the rush to reclassify salaried employees by December 1, 2016, when the new overtime rules take effect.

Employees of certain seasonal amusement parks or recreational venues, for example, don’t have to be paid overtime or minimum wage. To qualify, the amusement park generally can’t be in business any longer than seven months of the year, or if it is, be affected so that at least six months of the year, its receipts are cut to 2/3s of the receipts in the six good months. All of the amusement park’s employees are exempt, not just the ride operators and the food concessionaires, but also the accounting, human resources and management personnel, but only as long as they work in the park and not in a corporate office that runs several seasonal parks. How is that for an arcane exemption that won’t help 99% of employers, but could be very important if you own Wonderland Park or a miniature golf course?

Similarly, there are overtime (but not minimum wage) exemptions from the FLSA for these employees: Continue reading Strange Exemptions to the Overtime Law →

Employers Required to Display Poster Changes

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Effective August 1, 2016, all employers of every size workforce must comply with two new mandatory federal poster changes.  The US Department of Labor (DOL) has updated its Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) poster and the Employee Polygraph Protection Act (EPPA) poster.

The changes to the FLSA poster include removing civil penalty amounts, the addition of the riflsaghts of nursing mothers, and a deletion of text under the Child Labor section. Except for a few very narrowly exempted employers, whether you have two employees or two hundred employees, you need to put up this new poster.

The changes to the EPPA poster include a removal of a civil penalty limit, a change in their toll-free phone number, and an additional TTY phone number. All employers, regardless of the number of employees and regardless of whether you would ever consider giving your employees a polygraph, must display this poster in the workplace.

The mandatory notices must be posted immediately. As with all of your employment posters, these two new ones should be displayed in a prominent and conspicuous place in each of your establishments wherever notices can be readily seen by employees and applicants. A spot right next to your time clock or in your employee entrance area is ideal. Just make sure wherever you place your posters is a place that all of your employees regularly enter.

If you need help knowing which posters besides these two you need to have displayed in your workforce, you can find the lists of required federal posters here and Texas posters here. All of the required posters are available online for free. You don’t need to pay a commercial service for a combined poster that isn’t customized to the specifics of your workplace.

Don’t ignore your federal and state posting requirements. The penalties have risen recently. For example, if you have 15 or more employees, the failure to put up the required EEO poster was raised to $210 in 2014 for each of your locations and is now indexed to the Consumer Price Index to increase with inflation. Considering you have as many as twelve posters required in your workplace, you don’t want to be fined for something so easily remedied.

Overtime Change: Local Businesses Should Start Planning Now

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Vicki Wilmarth was quoted extensively about the new Department of Labor overtime rule in today’s lead story in the Amarillo Globe-News.

Vicki Wilmarth, an employment law lawyer in Amarillo, said that employers now have two options: Pay the employee the minimum salary of $47,476 or start paying that employee by the hour.

Click here to read the rest of the Globe-News story.

Employers Face “Joint Employer” Liability with Unrelated Companies

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The National Labor Relations Board ruled last week that two unrelated companies may be held to be joint employers of an employee who works for just one of the companies. Browning-Ferris Industries of California, 362 NLRB No. 186 (August 27, 2015), ruled that unrelated companies may be joint employers even if one employer has no power to hire, fire, supervise or determine the pay of an employee of the other employer.

The NLRB says that it “will no longer require that a joint employer not only possess the authority to control employees’ terms and conditions of employment, but also exercise that authority”.

In other words, if you as a business owner contractually could say anything to your subcontractor about the work you want performed by the subcontractor’s employees, then you can be jointly liable to those employees if any of the subcontractor’s employment practices go awry, even if you never actually exercise any control over your subcontractor’s employees. Continue reading Employers Face “Joint Employer” Liability with Unrelated Companies →

Workplace Posters For Free Online

There are companies that want to sell you expensive workplace posters that you don’t need to purchase because they are available for free online. Many employers are afraid that they don’t know which employment notices must be visible in the workplace, so they fall for the marketing pitch to pay for these expensive commercial posters.

As a Texas employer, have you received advertising in the mail similar to the notice pictured here? Such notices appear official, and can feel almost threatening, with warnings of penalties and fines associated with an employer failing to post current state and federal employment posters in the workplace.

Employment Poster Solicitation

It is not necessary for a Texas employer to pay $84 for the poster offered here. While it is true that posting certain notices and information is legally required, employers need not pay any company for this information. Free copies of the required posters can be found from the websites of each of the federal or Texas agencies that require them. The Texas Workforce Commission has graciously gathered a list of these posters into one place for you here.

Not only are you out the money if you buy one of these expensive posters, but these for-profit posters could actually hurt you if they promise rights to your employees that the law does not give them (such as promising Family and Medical Leave rights if the company has less than 50 employees and isn’t required to provide Family and Medical Leave). You don’t want to obligate yourself to things the law doesn’t require you to provide. The poster “invoice” pictured here didn’t ask the size of the employer’s workforce and apparently was not tailored to the laws to which a particular employer was subject.

As of August 2015, the posters that you as a Texas employer must have on your bulletin board, depending on the size of your workforce, are as follows: Continue reading Workplace Posters For Free Online →