On March 22, 2019, we wrote that the two houses of the Maryland General Assembly had agreed on a conference report adopting the Senate’s version of a bill that would increase the state-wide minimum wage to $15 by 2025 or 2026, depending on the size of the company, with two minor changes. We also discussed the bill on March 18, 2019.
Maryland appears poised to increase its minimum wage to $15 per hour over the next few years, joining California, Illinois, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, and various local jurisdictions, including its own Montgomery County and neighboring District of Columbia.
In our July 9, 2018 post we reported that a seven-member majority of the D.C. Council had introduced a bill, Bill 22-0913 (Tipped Wage Workers Fairness Amendment Act of 2018) to repeal Initiative 77, an initiative that District of Columbia voters approved on June 27, 2018 that would incrementally increase the minimum cash wage for tipped workers to $15.00 per hour by July 1, 2025 and effectively eliminate the tip credit starting July 1, 2026. We also noted that no further action would occur until this Fall due to a two-month summer recess.
Health care registry companies provide families and their loved ones with peace of mind by providing matchmaking and referral services for qualified, pre-screened and vetted home caregivers. They often also provide administrative services. As part of the “gig economy,” health care registries often tread a fine line in classifying caregivers as independent contractors rather than employees. A new Field Assistance Bulletin (“Bulletin”), “Determining Whether Nurse or Caregiver Registries are Employers of the Caregiver,” issued on July 13, 2018, by the Wage and Hour Division (“WHD”) of the U.S. Department of Labor (“DOL”) to its field enforcement staff, provides a road map on how homecare, nurse, and caregiver registries relying on an independent contractor business model can ensure the caregivers remain independent contractors not covered by the Fair Labor Standards Act (“FLSA”).
Our colleague at Epstein Becker Green has a post on the Wage & Hour Defense Blog that will be of interest to our readers in the hospitality industry: “Proposed D.C. Council Legislation Puts Voter-Approved Elimination of Tip Credit Into Question.”
In our June 28, 2018 post on District of Columbia voters approving Initiative 77, which would incrementally increase the minimum cash wage for tipped workers to $15.00 per hour by July 1, 2025, and effectively eliminate the tip credit staring July 1, 2026, we noted the possibility of action by the D.C. Council to amend or overturn it. Consistent with the opposition to the initiative previously expressed by a majority of the Council, on July 9, 2018, a seven-member majority of the Council introduced a bill (Tipped Wage Workers Fairness Amendment Act of 2018) to repeal Initiative 77. As the Council is now on a two-month summer recess, no further formal action will occur until the fall. Furthermore, considerable publicly expressed opposition to repealing a voter-approved initiative may lead to a compromise that extends the phase-in period or otherwise modifies the terms of the initiative, rather than a complete repeal. Meanwhile, two federal Congressmen have sponsored a budget rider barring spending funds to implement the initiative, although such efforts often fail. In short, it appears the future effectiveness of the initiative will remain in doubt for some time.
Voters in the District of Columbia on June 19, 2018 approved an initiative (Initiative 77) that would incrementally increase the minimum cash wage for tipped workers to $15.00 per hour by July 1, 2025, and starting July 1, 2026 to the same amount as the then-minimum wage for all other workers, effectively eliminating the tip credit. If the initiative takes effect, the District would join seven states that do not have a separate minimum wage for tipped workers, i.e., Alaska, California, Minnesota, Montana, Nevada, Oregon, and Washington.
On January 12, 2018, the Maryland General Assembly completed its expected override of Governor Hogan’s May 25, 2017 veto of a bill it passed last April, joining eight other states, the District of Columbia, and various local jurisdictions (including Montgomery County, Maryland) already requiring employers to provide paid sick and safe leave.
As we reported when the bill originally passed, the new law will require most employers with at least 15 employees to provide up to five paid days (forty hours) per year of sick and safe leave to their employees, and smaller employers to provide up to five unpaid sick and safe leave days. By overriding the veto, the General Assembly rejected Governor Hogan’s original proposal for a narrower bill that would have required paid leave only for business with 50 or more employees and provided tax incentives to smaller business that provide leave, as well as his more recent proposal for a three-year phase-in that also would allow employees to use the leave for any reason.
A year ago, employers across the country prepared for the implementation of a new overtime rule that would dramatically increase the salary threshold for white-collar exemptions, on the understanding that the new rule would soon go into effect “unless something dramatic happens,” a phrase we and others used repeatedly.
And, of course, something dramatic did happen—a preliminary injunction, followed by a lengthy appeal, which itself took more left turns following the U.S. presidential election than a driver in a NASCAR race. The effect was to put employers in a constant holding pattern as they were left to speculate whether and when the rule would ever go into effect.
Our colleague at Epstein Becker Green, has a post on the Wage and Hour Defense Blog that will be of interest to many of our readers in the retail industry: “Tenth Circuit Rules Tips Belong to the Employer If Tip Credit Is Not Taken.”
Following is an excerpt:
When an employer pays the minimum wage (or more) instead of taking the tip credit, who owns any tips – the employer or the employee? In Marlow v. The New Food Guy, Inc., No. 16-1134 (10th Cir. June 30, 2017), the United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit held they belong to the employer, who presumably can then either keep them or distribute them in whole or part to employees as it sees fit. This directly conflicts with the Ninth Circuit’s decision last year in Oregon Restaurant and Lodging Ass’n v. Perez, 816 F.3d 1080, 1086-89 (9th Cir. 2016), pet for cert. filed, No. 16-920 (Jan. 19, 2017) and likely sets up a showdown this fall in the U.S. Supreme Court. …