Archive for the ‘State Labor Law’ Category

The Department of Labor (DOL) is launching a program whereby states and the federal government will share information on the misclassification of employees as independent contractors, and the DOL in turn will rat to the Internal Revenue Service (IRS). The goal is to increase penalties for misclassifying employees and thereby restrict or eliminate the practice. [...]

Overriding the Democratic governor's veto, Republicans in the state legislature have abolished the state's minimum wage, which was $7.25 an hour, the same as the federal rate. With no state wage law, New Hampshire is now subject to the federal minimum. The House Republicans at the same time defeated a 75-cent increase in the (now-defunct) [...]

In a case involving California's overtime law, under which employees start earning time-and-a-half after working eight hours on any day, the state's Supreme Court has ruled that California businesses that bring in workers from other states must treat them as California residents for employment purposes. In other words, they must pay these out-of-state employees overtime [...]

Maine has passed legislation, which the governor is expected to sign, that will allow students aged 16 and 17 to work six hours a day after school ends for a maximum of 24 hours a week. Additionally, work must cease by 10:15 p.m. if school is in session the next day. An earlier version that [...]

The Connecticut Senate this week passed—and the governor is expected to sign—legislation mandating five annual days of sick leave for "service workers," which is an extremely and confusing category according to legal experts who have examined the wording of the law. Interestingly, the bill exempts the YMCA and all manufacturers, but requires employers to determine [...]

The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) earlier  this year held a series of meetings to look into the issue of businesses' refusing to hire the unemployed and blatantly announcing so in their help wanted advertisements. Now, New Jersey has taken matters into its own hands and outlawed ads that exclude the unemployed, whether the ads [...]

The New York Wage Theft Prevention Act takes effect tomorrow, April 9, 2011, tasking employers with new record-keeping and wage notification mandates as well as increasing civil and criminal penalties for pay violations. Under the law, employers must notify employees of their pay information on three separate occasions: at the time of being hired, at [...]

In November 2008 voters in Milwaukee, Wisc., approved a landmark paid sick leave initiative for employees working within the city. A subsequent legal challenge by a local business association got the measure ruled unconstitutional on technical law-writing grounds. Then, just a week ago the Wisconsin Court of Appeals reversed the original court decision, placing the [...]

New York has augmented its already-existing New York Labor Law Section 195 with a more demanding set of requirements contained in the recently enacted Wage Theft Prevention Act (WTPA). WTPA takes effect on April 12, 2011. Section 195 had already required employers to inform their employees in writing of their rate of pay, regular pay [...]

The courts have yet to weigh in, but a recent settlement between the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) and a Connecticut ambulance company may mean more freedom of speech—or at least retaliatory protection—for employees who post comments about their companies online. The incident has several angles to it, only one of which relates to the [...]