In a decision issued on April 28, 2011, the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals offers employers some clarity on the test to determine whether using unpaid interns or other student trainees violates the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA).
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wage and hour
DOL Wage-and-Hour Division Issues New Regulations
On April 5, 2011, the Department of Labor’s Wage and Hour Division (WHD) published new regulations. Among other changes, the WHD raised the maximum federal tip credit from $4.42 an hour to $5.12. That means that, under federal law, an employer can pay a tipped employee $5.12 less than the minimum wage so long as…
Supreme Court Holds That Oral Complaints Can Form the Basis for a FLSA Retaliation Suit
Yesterday, the U.S. Supreme Court held that an employee’s Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) retaliation claim can be based on an oral complaint made by the employee to his employer regarding wages or other issues covered by the Act.
An employee of Saint-Gobain Performance Plastics Corp. complained orally to Company officials about the Company’s timeclocks…
Supreme Court Declines to Hear Case Involving the Exempt Status of Pharmaceutical Sales Representatives
Just weeks after the Ninth Circuit created a circuit split by ruling that pharmaceutical sales representatives are exempt under the Fair Labor Standards Act’s outside sales exemption (see our earlier post on that decision), the Supreme Court has declined to hear Novartis Pharmaceutical Corp.’s appeal of a Second Circuit decision reaching the opposite conclusion. As…
Ninth Circuit Upholds Treatment of Pharmaceutical Sales Representatives As Outside Sales Employees
In August 2008, sales representatives from GlaxoSmithKline PLC filed a class action against the company, claiming they were non-exempt and entitled to overtime pay. They had always been treated as exempt by the company under the FLSA’s outside sales exemption. However, they argued, in part, that their exempt classification was improper because they do not…
Bridge to Increased Wage & Hour Litigation Now Open
In addition to adding 350 new wage-and-hour investigators to its staff, the U.S. Department of Labor recently announced a new collaboration between its Wage-and-Hour Division and the American Bar Association Standing Committee on Lawyer Referral and Information Service that will likely further increase the amount of FLSA and FMLA litigation. Through this new collaboration, which…
DOL Issues Guidelines on New Requirement for Break Time for Nursing Moms
The federal health care reform legislation passed in March of this year included an amendment to the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), requiring employers to provide reasonable unpaid break time to nursing mothers to express breast milk for the nursing child.
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DOL Considering Changes to FLSA Recordkeeping Requirements
Yesterday, the Department of Labor published its semiannual agenda of regulations that have been selected for review or development during the coming year. One of the proposed rules would significantly change the FLSA’s recordkeeping requirements. Specifically, as stated in a Wage and Hour Division Fact Sheet, the proposed rule would require “[a]ny employers that seek to…
DOL Issues a Fact Sheet Regarding Unpaid Internships
Less than a month after the New York Times ran an article on the DOL’s position regarding unpaid internships, the U.S. Department of Labor’s Wage and Hour Division has released a Fact Sheet explaining the test used to determine whether an intern is an employee under the FLSA. Although the test – which is laid out in one of our previous posts – remains unchanged, the Fact Sheet provides information regarding the test’s factors that may be useful to employers trying to discern whether their interns are covered by the FLSA’s overtime and minimum wage provisions.
The first factor is whether the internship, even though it includes actual operation of the facilities of the employer, is similar to training which would be given in an educational environment. The Fact Sheet provides additional detail on how to analyze this factor, noting that this “educational environment” often exists where a college or university exercises oversight over the internship program and provides educational credit. Also, the more the internship provides the individual with skills that can be used in multiple employment settings, as opposed to skills particular to one employer’s operation, the more likely the intern would be viewed as receiving training.
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DOL to Scrutinize Unpaid Internships
Researchers have found that the number of unpaid internships has risen, likely due to employers’ limited ability to provide new paying jobs and students’ willingness to gain increasingly hard-to-come-by experience. However, officials from the Department of Labor have indicated that many unpaid internship arrangements violate federal law.
Continue Reading DOL to Scrutinize Unpaid Internships