Tag Archives: wage hour defense

We have written here frequently about California’s controversial AB 5 law, which permits companies to treat workers as independent contractors only if they satisfy a stringent “ABC” test.

The broad statue, unambiguously written to try to force companies to treat gig economy workers as employees, has been the subject of a great deal of debate and litigation, including a state court action filed by the State Attorney General trying to force ride share companies to treat their drivers as employees.

As we wrote here recently,  two federal courts in California rejected Postmates’ attempt to escape having to defend thousands of individual arbitrations filed by drivers contending they have been misclassified as independent contractors. Those decisions require Postmates to pay millions in arbitration fees alone.

A federal court in Illinois has now reached the same conclusion, holding that Postmates must proceed with more than 200 individual arbitrations that will cost Postmates $11 million in arbitration fees.

Many hospitality businesses, such as restaurants and bars, have found themselves restructuring their daily operations in light of the current global COVID-19 health crisis, and the subsequent federal, state, and local shelter in place orders. For instance, where restaurants and bars once served customers on a dine-in basis, perhaps they are now restricted to take-out only or delivery options, and, as a result, many employers who are still operating in the wake of the pandemic now have very few employees with customer-facing roles.

Because of the necessary changes in daily operations, many businesses are reconsidering their tip policies. Perhaps your policy was to allow employees to keep all tips he or she earned, which now seems unfair to employees who are integral to serving customers but no longer have direct customer contact so you want to shift to a tip pool model. Perhaps you have always operated on a tip pool model, but with ever-shifting job duties and positions, you are unclear whether your tip pool policy is legally compliant. Whatever the case, one thing is certain: given that daily operations of customer-service oriented businesses has likely changed and will continue to change as our country slowly moves toward reopening, now is the perfect time to revisit some important considerations if you are thinking about shifting to a tip pool model or even if you already have one.

For the second time this week, the U.S. Department of Labor’s Wage and Hour Division (“WHD”) has issued a Final Rule involving the overtime provisions of the Fair Labor Standards Act (the “FLSA”).  Following closely on the heels of the revisions to the section 7(i) exemption regulations discussed here, on May 20, 2020 WHD released its revisions to the regulations regarding the “fluctuating workweek” method of paying overtime to salaried non-exempt employees.  And, as with the 7(i) Final Rule, the fluctuating workweek Final Rule eliminates confusion caused by WHD’s previous rulemaking efforts.

California law has specific requirements regarding the payment of overtime to employees. An employer’s failure to pay overtime—or failure to pay the correct overtime rate—can result in a litany of unintended Labor Code violations, which, in turn, can lead to enormous liability. Therefore, it is critical that employers understand when overtime is due and how to calculate the overtime rate of pay.