There has been much talk about Project 2025, a book published by the Heritage Foundation. Many of the authors were major players in the last Trump administration. So, we can expect the contents of the almost 900 page book to fuel many policy proposals in a new Trump administration, if there is one. The book
Wage and Hour Issues
Workers Can Estimate Overtime Hours
Under the Fair Labor Standards Act, all employees are entitled to overtime. But, what if there is a dispute about the overtime? What happens when the employee claims a large amount of overtime, but the employer says there was no overtime?
Supreme Court precedent holds that if an employer maintains time records, then the employer…
Independent Contractor: the Eye of the Beholder
For some 10-15 years, employers have been trying to save some money by transforming traditional employees into independent contractors. Different entities use different tests to determine whether an employee is truly an independent contractor. I previously wrote about the various tests here. One commonly used test is that employed by the Texas Workforce Commission.…
New Joint Employer Regulation Struck Down
I have previously written about joint employers. See my posts here and here. TheTrump administration tried to make it harder to show a joint employer relationship. It adopted an interpretive regulation which the DOL thought would make it harder to prove joint employers. But, the court in State of New York v. Scalia,…
Final Paycheck Due in Six Days
Texas Workforce Commission is supposed to enforce the Texas statutes regarding wages. TWC provides a helpful summary of the Texas Pay Day statute. See the TWC summary here. But, their summary does not answer one frequently asked question, when must an employer pay the last paycheck? I am asked this often, since many employers…
Meal Breaks Must Be Free of All Work Duties
“You get a rest break every four hours,” the seasoned warehouseman told me back in the 1970’s. He knew everything. I just assumed he was right about this, too. But, since then, I have never seen anything in law or regulation stating that workers were entitled to a 15 minute break every 4 hours. But,…
Families First Act Signed
The President signed into law the Families First Coronavirus Response Act yesterday. See the new Act here. It amends the Family Medical Leave Act. The FFCRA applies to employers with fewer than 500 employees. This provision may cause confusion, since the FMLA itself applies to employers with more than 50 employees.
The FFCRA covers…
Employer Cannot Deduct Pay
Some employers try to avoid the overtime requirements of the Fair Labor Standards Act by claiming an hourly employee is a manager or simply that the employee is paid on a salary basis. In Kim v. Umami Grill & Sushi, LLC, No. H-18-850, 2019 U.S. List. LEXIS 31054 (S.D. Tex. 2/27/2019), the employer moved…
Workers Paid with Gift Cards
Employers do some crazy things, sometimes. One employer in New Braunfels has been paying “volunteers” with gift cards and fabric. Quilt Haus and Way to Sew have been paying some workers with gift cards payable to the store itself. The workers would receive one gift card valued at $8 for each hour of work. The…
McDonald’s Settles with Franchise Workers
I wrote about this McDonald’s lawsuit a couple of years ago. See my prior post here. The lawsuit represented a new approach to franchisees. For years, even decades, persons suing franchisees could not also sue the parent company. A person could sue the local McDonald’s, but not the parent company. The theory was that…