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Under the Immigration Reform and Control Act (IRCA), employers must verify the identity and employment authorization of all employees and document that information using the Employment Eligibility Verification Form I-9. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) is responsible for enforcing the IRCA, which is precisely what it has been doing.

Employees of a Mercedes-Benz dealership in California filed a lawsuit to collect unpaid overtime compensation under the Fair Labor Standards Act. They took their case all the way up to the United States Supreme Court. In April 2018, the Court issued its 5-4 decision. The employees lost.

When is an intern considered an employee under the Fair Labor Standards Act? In case you haven’t heard, the answer to this question recently changed. In January 2018, the Department of Labor clarified that going forward, a “primary beneficiary” test will be used to determine whether interns are employees under the FLSA.

If you don’t think this is significant, think again. The FLSA’s minimum wage and overtime pay requirements apply to employees, not interns. “For profit” employers are not required by the FLSA to compensate interns for their work. Not surprisingly, some employers have tried to exploit unpaid interns by accepting free labor without providing an appreciable benefit in education or experience.

The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) is responsible for enforcing various federal equal employment opportunity laws. The EEOC annually releases fiscal year enforcement and litigation data to keep the public apprised of its efforts and results. The most recent release shows that the EEOC received 84,254 individual charges of workplace discrimination in FY 2017.

The good news is that this is lower than the number of charges filed in fiscal years 2016 (91,503), 2015 (89,385) and 2014 (88,778). The bad news is that 69,583 charges were closed because there was no reasonable cause to believe that discrimination occurred based upon evidence obtained in investigation.

Do you remember when President Obama first directed the Secretary of Labor to update the white-collar overtime exemption regulations? Since then, employers endured the uncertainty of not knowing if, when or how they would be affected by the new overtime rules.

But now, at long last, it looks like employers can stop thinking and worrying about the 2016 white-collar overtime exemption regulations. Finally.

Are you ready for www.InsertYourCondoHere.com? Thanks to a recent statutory amendment, if your condominium association has 150 or more units, you need to start getting ready.

By July 1, 2018, associations with 150 or more units are required to post digital copies of various documents on websites that are accessible through the Internet. This means that associations that don’t have a website have less than a year to get one.

Employers must use Form I-9 to verify the identity and employment authorization of each individual hired in the United States. Though the last version of Form I-9 expired in March 2016, employers were instructed to keep using the expired form until they received further notice from U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. On November 14, 2016, employers received their further notice when USCIS published a revised Form I-9, Employment Eligibility Verification.

The current federal minimum wage under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) is $7.25 per hour ($2.13 for tipped employees). Most states, however, have established their own minimum wage, and employees in these states are entitled to whichever minimum wage is higher. Given the existence of multiple minimum wage rates, employers, particularly those operating in more than one state, must know which minimum wage rate (or rates) may apply to their operations.

Did you know that retaliation is asserted in nearly 45 percent of all charges received by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC)? In 2015, the EEOC received nearly 40,000 charges of unlawful retaliation, which may explain why, on August 29, 2016, the EEOC issued its final Enforcement Guidance on Retaliation and Related Issues. And, as a general rule, if the EEOC is particularly concerned about a specific unlawful employment practice, employers should be too.

Can employers offer incentives to encourage participation in wellness programs that ask disability-related questions or require medical examinations? Though the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) permits health-related inquiries and medical examinations that are part of a voluntary health program, ADA regulations didn’t address whether employers may offer incentives to encourage employee participation in these health programs...until now.

Did you know that each year there are more than 3 million serious (requiring more than first aid) workplace injuries and illnesses? Even though the Occupational Safety and Health Act requires employers to provide safe and healthy workplaces, the number of injuries and illnesses remains unacceptably high. To help combat this problem, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) recently revised various workplace safety regulations.

On December 1, 2016, employers will have to pay more to take advantage of the Fair Labor Standards Act’s (FLSA) so-called white collar overtime exemptions. To prepare for the upcoming change, employers need to know whether and to what extent they will be affected by the new overtime exemption regulations.

The new rules focus primarily on the minimum salary and compensation levels needed to qualify for the FLSA’s executive, administrative, professional and computer employee overtime exemptions. Employers can ask the following questions to determine the potential impact of the new overtime rules before it’s too late.

Are there any employees classified as exempt under one of the FLSA’s white collar overtime exemptions? If no, you should not be affected by the higher standard salary levels under the new rules. If yes, move on to the next question. More...

They’re heeeere. No, not a poltergeist, though for many they may be just as unsettling. We’re talking about the new minimum wage and overtime exemption regulations for white collar employees under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA). The long-awaited Final Rule has been released and is scheduled for publication on May 23, 2016.

The Final Rule focuses primarily on salary and compensation levels for the executive, administrative, professional, outside sales and computer employee exemptions, which are the FLSA’s so-called white collar exemptions. Since the Final Rule is not identical to the proposed rule published on July 16, 2015, let’s look at some of the differences.

It’s been over two years since President Obama directed the Department of Labor (DOL) to update the ‘white-collar’ overtime exemption regulations under Fair Labor Standards Act, including the executive, administrative and professional exemptions. It’s been nearly a year since the public was first given an opportunity to see and comment on the DOL’s proposed revisions. (The DOL received 293,389 comments.) Now, it seems we are one (huge) step closer to new white-collar overtime exemption rules becoming a reality.

On March 14, 2016, the DOL’s final version of the revised overtime exemption regulations was submitted to the White House's Office of Management and Budget (OMB) for review. Once the OMB completes its review, the final regulations will be published. After that, it’s just a matter of time.

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Are you a joint employer? According to the Department of Labor (DOL), instances of joint employment are increasing due to economic forces and technological advancements. Since joint employers may be held responsible for violations of various federal employment laws, like the Fair Labor Standards Act, employers must know whether they may be involved in a potential joint employment situation.

Should employers be concerned that the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) achieved record enforcement results in 2015? Yes! Enforcement of federal equal employment opportunity laws is essentially a zero-sum game. If the EEOC is winning, employers must be losing, and according to the EEOC’s 2015 Performance Report, employers have been losing a lot.

The Department of Labor (DOL) recently gave a free lesson about misclassifying employees as independent contractors under the FLSA.

Those failing this lesson may get another from the DOL, but it probably won’t be free. Since the DOL is making an effort to identify and remedy employee misclassification, employers should be doing the same.

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In March 2014, President Obama directed the Secretary of Labor to “modernize and streamline” the Fair Labor Standards Act’s overtime exemption regulations governing executive, administrative and professional employees. On July 6, 2015, the Department of Labor (DOL) published its proposed regulatory changes to these so-called ‘white collar’ overtime exemptions, and despite their significance, they are quite simple.

The DOL essentially proposed three general changes to the white collar overtime exemptions.

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Did you know that telemedicine can reduce the amount of time off taken by employees to see or take their child to a doctor for non-serious medical issues? This may come as a surprise, particularly if you don’t know the most common reason people have for going to the doctor. (You’ll have to keep reading to find out.)

Telemedicine generally refers to the practice of using telecommunications technologies (phone, Internet, etc.) to diagnose and treat patients, and it’s come a long way. Consider this:

• The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services describes telemedicine as a cost-effective alternative to providing medical care.
• The American Medical Association says telemedicine is a key innovation that can maintain patient safety, improve access to health care and control costs.

The most recent enforcement and litigation data released by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) confirm that employment-related liabilities remain one of the most significant risks facing employers. Controlling these risks requires an understanding of what employers can and cannot do under the various equal employment opportunity laws enforced by the EEOC, including:

• Title VII of the Civil Rights Act (Title VII)
• the Pregnancy Discrimination Act
• the Equal Pay Act (EPA)
• the Age Discrimination in Employment Act (ADEA)
• the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA)
• the Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act (GINA).

These laws generally make it illegal for employers to discriminate on the basis of a person’s protected characteristic, such as an employee’s or applicant’s race, color, religion, sex (including pregnancy), national origin, age (40 or older), disability or genetic information. It is also illegal to retaliate against a person because he or she complained about discrimination, filed a charge of discrimination, or participated in an employment discrimination investigation or lawsuit.

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