Workforce Bulletin

Our colleague David M. Prager at Epstein Becker Green has a post on the Wage and Hour Defense Blog that will be of interest to our readers in the hospitality industry: “Overtime: DOL Proposes to Raise Salary Level for Overtime Exemption to $35,308.”

Following is an excerpt:

The U.S. Department of Labor has released a proposal to update the overtime rules under the federal Fair Labor Standards Act. Employers should be prepared to raise salaries to meet the minimum thresholds, pay overtime when appropriate, and otherwise adhere to the new rules if they go into effect.

Federal ...

By:  John F. Fullerton III

On May 16, I co-hosted a small roundtable discussion here at the firm entitled “Employee Misclassification Issues in the Financial Services Industry:  Preventive Maintenance and Proactive Strategies.”  The topics included proper application of the administrative exemption from federal and state overtime laws; the nettlesome employee v. independent contractor question; and contingent workforce issues.  In attendance was a healthy mix of in-house employment counsel, human resources professionals, management consultants and outside counsel.  ...

by Peter M. Panken, Michael S. Kun, Douglas Weiner, and Larissa Lalor-Rosado

Misclassification of employees as exempt from overtime compensation has become a cottage industry for plaintiff’s lawyers and for the United States Department of Labor (“DOL”) in the Obama years.  One of the most difficult issues is whether employees meet the so-called administrative exemption to the Wage Hour laws.  In Hines v. State Room, the United States Circuit Court of Appeals for the First Circuit offered some clarity and help to beleaguered employers holding that former banquet sales ...

By Peter M. Panken, Michael S. Kun, Douglas Weiner and Larissa Lalor-Rosado

Hotels, restaurants and private clubs all rely on sponsored events, banquets and social soirees for the profitability of their operation.  Most employ one or more “managers” to solicit the business, work with the clients, detail the services to be provided, prepare the contract and even negotiate a price.  In most instances higher management must approve the terms the managers propose including the financial arrangements.  In other cases the basic terms are set forth in directions which can only be varied ...

By: Kara M. Maciel and Forrest G. Read, IV

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit’s recent decision in Diaz v. Jaguar Rest. Group, LLC underscores the importance for hospitality employers to know which job duties their employees are performing in order to assert every potentially applicable affirmative defense when answering an employee’s FLSA lawsuit for non-payment of overtime. In Diaz, the Eleventh Circuit reversed the trial court’s decision that a restaurant, which failed to raise the administrative exemption to the overtime requirement at any point ...