Workforce Bulletin

On January 9, 2024, the United States Department of Labor’s (DOL) Wage and Hour Division (WHD) announced a final rule regarding how to determine whether a worker qualifies as an employee or may be considered an independent contractor under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA).  Designed to combat misclassification, the final rule rescinds DOL’s Trump-era Independent Contractor Rule issued in January 2021 and restores the non-exhaustive six-factor test courts have long used to evaluate whether or not independent contractors were properly classified.  The test considers:

Over the past five years, ten states and several local jurisdictions across the country have passed wage transparency laws in an effort to address gender and racial wage disparities.  Wage transparency laws may apply to wage range disclosures and promotional opportunities in job advertisements, among current employees and job applicants.  In this changing landscape, employers must be diligent in order to comply with these laws, given their variety with respect to who must receive disclosures, which factual circumstances trigger disclosure requirements, and what information ...

On August 16, 2023, a unanimous three-judge panel of the Third Circuit vacated and remanded a decision from the Middle District of Pennsylvania ruling that the time spent by oil-rig workers changing in and out of their protective gear was not compensable.

Plaintiffs Rodney Tyger, Shawn Wadsworth brought a Fair Labor Standards Act collective action against Defendants Precision Drilling Corp., Precision Drilling Oilfield Services, Inc., and Precision Drilling Company, LP (“Precision”), an oil rig, for failing to pay them for pre-shift donning and post-shift doffing of ...

Earlier this year, on February 6, 2023, the New Jersey Governor signed the Temporary Workers’ Bill of Rights into law.

On August 21, 2023, the New Jersey Department of Labor and Workforce Development (NJDOL) Division of Wage and Hour and Contract Compliance published Proposed Regulations to govern the new law. The Department will be accepting public comments regarding the Law until October 20, 2023. While the Bill of Rights has wide-sweeping consequences for temporary laborers and third-party clients, it is also notable for making New Jersey the first state to require equal ...

On July 21, 2023, a unanimous three-judge panel once again affirmed a California federal court’s ruling that the truck drivers who deliver ingredients from Domino’s Southern California Supply Chain Center to Domino’s California franchisees are exempt from the Federal Arbitration Act (“FAA”).

On May 3, 2023, New York Governor Kathy Hochul announced – and then signed into law – the New York Legislature’s 2024 Budget Agreement (“Budget”), which includes increases to the state’s minimum wage.  Effective January 1, 2024, the minimum wage will increase to $16 per hour in New York City and Nassau, Suffolk, and Westchester counties, and to $15 per hour in the remainder of the state.  The minimum wage will then increase by another $.50 each year in 2025 and 2026—reaching $17 per hour in downstate New York by 2026. Subsequent annual increases to the minimum wage will be tied to the inflation rate. The State Department of Labor (DOL) is required to publish future adjusted minimum wage rates by no later than October 1st of each year.

On April 28, 2023, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit reversed and remanded a decision from the Western District of Texas declining to issue a preliminary injunction barring the Department of Labor (“DOL”) from enforcing a regulation known as the “80/20/30 rule.”

As we previously reported, on October 29, 2021, the DOL issued a final rule for determining which tipped employees may receive “tip credit” in lieu of receiving the full minimum wage directly from the employer.  Under the 80/20/30 rule, employers must pay employees at least the minimum wage if they spend more than 20% of their time on tasks that do not immediately and directly generate tips, including wiping down tables, filling salt and pepper shakers, rolling silverware into napkins, and other duties referred to in the industry as “side work,” or if they spend more than 30 consecutive minutes performing such tasks.  The Restaurant Law Center and the Texas Restaurant Association promptly sought a preliminary injunction in the Western District of Texas.

On March 10, 2023, a unanimous three-judge panel upheld an Oregon federal court’s ruling that time Amazon employees spent undergoing mandatory security screenings before and after work shifts and off-premises meal breaks was not compensable, as the screenings were not integral and indispensable to their jobs under state law.

The Washington, D.C. Council (the Council) has yet again taken action to delay enforcement of Initiative 82, the District’s new law to eliminate the use of the “tip credit” for certain service industry employees by July 1, 2027.

On Tuesday, November 8, 2022, Washington, D.C. voters approved a ballot measure to eliminate the “tip credit” which allowed service industry employers to pay servers, bartenders, and other tipped employees $5.35 an hour rather than D.C.’s $16.10 per hour minimum wage. Currently, employers are required to pay the balance if an employee is unable to make up the difference through tips. Initiative 82 will phase out the tip credit, raising the tip credit minimum wage to $6.00 in January 2023, and then to $8 on July 1, 2023, and then increasing by $2.00 every year until 2027. In 2027 ...

On October 25, 2022, the Department of Labor extended the comment period for its new proposed rule regarding independent contractor status under the Fair Labor Standards Act. While the comment period was originally set to expire on November 28, 2022, interested parties will now have until December 13, 2022 to submit comments.

In light of the federal court ruling reinstating the Trump-era independent contractor regulation (discussed here), on October 13, 2022, the Department of Labor published a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking regarding independent contractor status under the Fair Labor Standards Act.

On Friday, October, 29, 2021, the Department of Labor (DOL) issued a final rule regarding how to determine which tipped employees may receive a “tip credit” in lieu of receiving the full minimum wage directly from the employer. The new rule restores the “80/20” rule rescinded under President Trump, requiring employers to pay employees at least the minimum wage if they spend more than 20% of their time working on tasks that do not specifically generate tips such as wiping down tables, filling salt and pepper shakers, and rolling silverware into napkins, or duties referred to in the industry as “side work.” The rule goes into effect on December 31, 2021 and the change represents continuation of a pattern that has continued across administrations with Presidents adopting and rescinding the rule over the past three administrations.

On June 1, 2021 the Southern District of Florida granted the motion by Uber Technologies, Inc. (“Uber”) to compel arbitration, finding that the company’s drivers did not engage in sufficient interstate commerce to meet the interstate commerce exclusion in the Federal Arbitration Act (FAA).

Plaintiffs Kathleen Short and Harold White brought a class action against Uber alleging that the company’s policy of classifying its drivers as independent contractors violates the Fair Labor Standards Act and the Florida Minimum Wage Act because the company failed to pay drivers the minimum wage. Uber sought to enforce its arbitration agreement which unambiguously required plaintiffs to pursue any potential claims in an individual arbitration.

As we previously discussed, in early January 2021, the U.S. Department of Labor issued a Final Rule regarding independent contractor status under the Fair Labor Standards Act.  On May 5, 2021, in line with the policy goals of the new administration, the Department issued a Final Rule withdrawing the January Final Rule.  The withdrawal went into effect on May 6, 2021, upon the publication in the Federal Register (86 FR 24303).  The January independent contractor rule was originally to go into effect in March, before the Department issued a notice of proposed rulemaking proposing to ...

The Westchester County Human Rights Commission (the “Commission”) has announced that the county’s Earned Sick Leave Law, which went into effect on April 10, 2019, has been preempted by New York’s Paid Sick Leave Law (“Law” or “PSLL”), which took effect on September 30, 2020. Westchester County’s law had required that eligible employees accrue one hour of sick time for every 30 hours worked, up to a maximum of 40 hours per year.

As we previously covered, the PSLL applies to all private employers and employees in New York State, and requires employers to provide up to 40 ...

Proposed Paid Sick Leave Law Regulations

As we previously reported, New York State’s Paid Sick Leave Law (“PSLL”) went into effect on September 30, 2020. The PSLL requires all New York private employers to provide paid sick leave, which employees may begin using as of January 1, 2021. The amount of sick leave that employers must provide their employees annually depends on the employer’s size and income. On December 9, 2020, the NY Department of Labor published proposed regulations clarifying a number of issues relating to the PSLL as summarized below.

Definitions

• Defines ...

On June 15, 2020, and June 24, 2020, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo issued two Executive Orders (“EO”) numbers 202.45 and 205, which address COVID-19 travel-related restrictions. EO 202.45 temporarily modifies New York State’s pandemic-related Sick Leave Law to prohibit employees from receiving paid sick leave benefits if, as of June 25, 2020, they travel to a “restricted state” for non-work related reasons and contract COVID-19. EO 205 (the “Travel Advisory”) imposes a 14-day quarantine requirement on travelers from a “restricted state” entering New York ...

New York State has issued guidance in the form of Frequently Asked Questions (“FAQs”) regarding the State’s new COVID-19 Leave Law (the “Law”). As we have reported, the Law requires New York employers to provide certain employees who are under a COVID-19-related quarantine or isolation order with either paid or unpaid sick leave, depending on the employer’s size and net income. The FAQs provide answers to more than 30 questions regarding the Law’s mandates on benefits, eligibility, the application process, disputes, and the complaint process.

For example, the FAQs ...

On August 20, 2019, Governor Andrew M. Cuomo signed A5618/S1040 (the “Amendment”) into law, amending the New York State Human Rights Law (“NYSHRL”) with respect to protections for victims of domestic violence. The Amendment becomes effective November 18, 2019.

The Amendment broadens the definition of “victim of domestic violence” to make it consistent with the Domestic Violence Prevention Act (NY Soc. Serv. L § 459-A). In addition, although the NYSHRL previously prohibited discrimination against victims of domestic violence, the Amendment explicitly adds ...