Workforce Bulletin

[Update: On April 25, 2024, Maryland Governor Wes Moore signed this bill into law.]

Maryland is poised to join the growing list of jurisdictions that have enacted pay transparency requirements for job postings, which includes jurisdictions such as California, Colorado, Hawaii, Illinois, New York, Washington State, and Washington D.C. House Bill 649 was passed by the General Assembly earlier this month, and if signed by the Governor, will take effect on October 1, 2024.

Maryland’s Current Pay Transparency Law

Maryland’s current wage history and wage range law that went into ...

California law generally requires employers to pay non-exempt employees a premium of one hour of pay for non-compliant meal and rest periods. Employers have typically paid such premiums by using the employees’ standard hourly rates. A new California Supreme Court decision requires employers to pay premiums at a higher rate when employees receive nondiscretionary compensation. This change in the law not only will require employers to adjust how they calculate meal and rest period premiums going forward, but it also exposes some of them to litigation for their past practices if ...

Our colleagues Denise Dadika and Vidaur Durazo of Epstein Becker Green have a new post on the Health Employment and Labor blog that will be of interest to our readers: "Changing Floors: Minimum Wage Increases for Health Leaders to Consider".

The following is an excerpt:

2021 is set to be a landmark year for the number of jurisdictions raising wage floors across the country. According to a National Employment Law Project report, as of January 1, 2021, 20 states and 32 municipalities raised their minimum wage. By the end of 2021, the report tracks that as many as 24 states and 50 ...

In Tze-Kit Mui v. Massachusetts Port Authority, Massachusetts’ highest court held that Massachusetts law does not require employers to pay departing employees for accrued, unused sick time within the timeframe prescribed for “wages,” as the term is defined by the Massachusetts Wage Act.

In reaching its decision, the Court analyzed the plain meaning of “wages” under the Act and concluded that the legislature did not intend that “wages” would include sick time. The decision removes a significant concern for Massachusetts employers who are strictly liable for ...

In Romero v. Top-Tier Colorado LLC, the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that tips received by a restaurant server for hours in which she did not qualify as a tipped employee were not “wages” under the FLSA, and therefore should not be considered in determining whether she was paid the minimum wage.

Tipped Employees & the FLSA

The FLSA provides that employers may take a “tip credit” and pay employees as little as $2.13 per hour if: (i) the tip credit is applied to employees who customarily and regularly receive tips; (ii) the employee’s wages and tips are at least equal to the ...

By William J. Milani, Dean L. Silverberg, Jeffrey M. Landes, Susan Gross Sholinsky, Anna A. Cohen, and Jennifer A. Goldman

The New York State Department of Labor (“DOL”) has adopted wage deduction regulations (“Final Regulations”) pertaining to the expanded categories of permissible wage deductions in the New York Labor Law, effective October 9, 2013. 

As we previously reported (see the Act Now Advisory entitled “New York State Releases Proposed Wage Deduction Regulations”), among other things, the Final Regulations (i) set forth information concerning the subset ...