Archive for the ‘State Labor Law’ Category

It seems hard that any show could beat out The Office for the most workplace violations in matters of diversity, discrimination, and respect, but a group calling itself Global Compliance conducted a study and concluded that 30 Rock topped the list, followed closely by Grey’s Anatomy. Global Compliance’s tally revealed that 30 Rock was home to [...]

According to a survey by FMLASource, the number of employees taking unpaid leave from work under the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) has risen by 10 percent in 2010. “As companies continue to operate with leaner staffs in a slowly recovering economy, many workers are seeking FMLA job protection in order to take time [...]

Governor David Patterson of New York has signed into law the Wage Theft Prevention Act, which specifies new notification and reporting obligations on the part of employers and also raises the stakes money-wise on civil and criminal fines. It also provides for imprisonment in some circumstances. The law requires employers to provide documentation to each [...]

The Department of Labor (DOL) announced recently that it has collected more than $300 million in back wages since 2009, benefiting some 385,000 workers. Typically, back wages represent overtime pay that was withheld either knowingly or unknowingly. Since taking over, the Obama administration and DOL Secretary Hilda Solis have beefed up their inspection force by hiring [...]

In its annual survey of corporate legal departments, Fulbright and Jaworski L.L.P. found that 87 percent of respondents have been involved in employment and labor lawsuits in 2010, up from 83 percent in 2009, while 53 percent of those responding actually initiated the legal action, up from the prior year’s 46 percent.  Overall, 93 percent [...]

Arizona will raise its minimum wage 10 cents above the federal rate on Jan. 1, 2011, bringing it to $7.35 an hour In 2006, Arizona voters enacted the “Raise the Minimum Wage for Working Arizonans Act.” This law provides for annual minimum wage rate hikes based on increases in the cost of living. The cost [...]

Safety easily outranks wage-and-hour and other workplace issues among today’s workers, according to a just-released study by National Opinion Research Center (NORC) at the University of Chicago. More than eight of ten workers—85 percent—rank workplace safety first in importance among labor standards, even ahead of family and maternity leave, minimum wage, paid sick days, overtime [...]

The newly reconstituted National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), which oversees relationships between organized labor and business, this past Friday (Aug. 21, 2010) upheld the first four of hundreds of decisions rendered by the two-member NLRB that existed in the waning months of the Bush administration–decisions that were later invalidated by the Supreme Court. Earlier this [...]

The Department of Labor (DOL) has announced stiffer penalties for violation of the child labor laws covered under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) and other pieces of legislation.  "Beginning today, employers who hire children too young to work will face stiffer penalties," said Secretary of Labor Hilda L. Solis. "Work is not child’s play. [...]

The California Division of Labor Standards Enforcement (DLSE) had long made life complicated for employers in the state who wanted to bring on board unpaid interns, adding an extra five criteria to those spelled out in the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA). But all that has changed now that the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) [...]