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Firm/Organization: Franczek P.C.
Blogs: Wage & Hour Insights

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On Tuesday, the U.S. Department of Labor issued its final rule concerning overtime exemptions. The rule increases the salary threshold for employees exempt under the executive, administrative, and professional exemptions (the “white collar exemptions”) from $455 per week (or $23,660 annually) to $684 per week (or $35,568 annually). Additional changes include: Increasing the total annual compensation threshold for highly compensated employees (“HCEs”) from $100,000 per year to $107,432 per year; Permitting employers to use nondiscretionary bonuses and incentive payments to satisfy up to 10% of the increase salary threshold; and Committing to updating the salary threshold more regularly. The new…
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On June 11, 2019, Alabama Governor Kay Ivey signed a new law that prohibits wage discrimination based upon sex and protects workers who decline to share their salary history with a prospective employer. The new law takes effect August 1, 2019. Unlike laws in some other states, the Alabama law does not bar employers from asking for salary history information, but prohibits employers from refusing to interview or hire applicants who decline to provide such information. Alabama joins a growing list of jurisdictions to ban or limit the use of salary history inquiries in the hiring process, including: California (statewide and…
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Among the bills awaiting signature by Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker is an amendment to the Illinois Equal Pay Act of 2003 that would ban employers from asking job applicants for information about their wage, salary or benefits history. Governor Pritzker is expected to sign the bill, HB834. With this new law, Illinois joins at least 12 other states and multiple counties and municipalities in restricting employers’ ability to obtain or use applicants’ compensation history in the process of hiring and setting compensation. New Restrictions on Requesting and Using Salary HistoryHB834 specifically prohibits employers from screening job applicants based on their…
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The City of Chicago has flirted with enacting a “Fair Workweek” ordinance, aimed at ensuring predictable work schedules for workers, for several years. While the ordinance failed to gain traction in its prior iterations, this time it has a powerful proponent in Mayor Lori Lightfoot, who has made passing the ordinance one of her priorities for her first 100 days in office. If it passes, the ordinance will impose significant new regulatory obligations on day and temporary labor service agencies, hotels, restaurants, building services, healthcare facilities and programs, manufacturers, airports, warehouses, retail employers, and childcare providers. The Chicago City…
Earlier today (March 7, 2019), the U.S. Department of Labor announced new proposed regulations (.pdf) that would increase the minimum salary for employees to qualify for the Executive, Administrative, and Professional exemptions under the Fair Labor Standards Act to $679 per week, equivalent to $35,308 per year. This is an increase from the current minimum of $455 per week ($23,660 per year), set in 2004. However, it is significantly less than the $913 per week ($47,476 per year) minimum established in final regulations issued in 2016 and later blocked by a federal court. Unlike the ill-fated 2016 regulations, the new…
On February 15, 2019, the U.S. Department of Labor issued Field Assistance Bulletin No. 2019-2, providing additional guidance for Wage and Hour Division staff regarding how to apply tip credit rules for employees who perform both tip-generating work (like taking orders and serving) and other duties. We provided an overview of the DOL’s position on the issue in an earlier post (“What Duties Can a Server Perform Under the Tip Credit Rules?“). This latest bulletin doesn’t break new ground, but does provide a useful summary of the DOL’s current take on how the tip credit under FLSA…
On February 19, 2019, Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker signed Senate Bill 1, which increases the minimum wage in Illinois to $15 per hour by 2025. Under the new law, the minimum wage will increase from $8.25 to $9.25 on January 1, 2020, to $10.00 on July 1, 2020. Thereafter, the minimum wage will increase by $1.00 per hour each January 1, until it reaches $15.00 per hour on January 1, 2025. To mitigate the sting for small employers, the law allows employers with 50 or fewer employees to claim a tax credit for 25% of the cost of the increase…
Oh the weather outside is frightful … No, seriously, it’s actually dangerous here in Chicago. Since much of the city seems to be on lock-down today as we all try not to freeze to death, this seems like a good time to review the rules relating to employee pay during weather-related shut-downs. For non-exempt employees, the rule is pretty simple: Unless you have promised to do otherwise, you only have to pay non-exempt employees for the hours that they actually work. If you are shut down due to weather, you are not typically obligated to pay non-exempt employees. If you…
Back in 2008, Illinois enacted what at the time must have seemed like a relatively obscure law to address privacy concerns associated with biometric information – the Biometric Information Privacy Act or “BIPA”. At the time, biometric devices existed, but they weren’t terribly common. Today, many of us carry a sophisticated fingerprint reader or face scanner in our pockets, and many businesses have adopted biometric security for everything from company phones and computers to timekeeping systems to door access. Unfortunately, many of those same businesses had never heard of BIPA. Cue the lawyers. Back in July 2017, we reported on several …
The idea seems so simple: Instead of carefully tracking how much time each employee takes off during the year, we all agree to treat one another as professional, responsible adults, and take off whatever time we need consistent with getting our work done. That’s the idea behind unlimited vacation or PTO policies, and it does seem great in theory. Employees get flexibility. Employers don’t have to book accrued vacation or PTO or worry themselves about complicated recordkeeping. Everyone is happy. Until, that is, the government and the lawyers get involved. Lawmakers and regulators often are not “out of the box”…
As the holiday lights start to fade, we come to one of the most anticipated times of the year – bonus season! Such a happy time. Who doesn’t love getting a bonus, and what employer doesn’t like rewarding good performance with some extra monetary recognition? Bonuses are great, but keep in mind that they also carry some legal obligations. In the case of non-exempt employees, that might include paying additional overtime based on your bonus payment. The FLSA requires employers to pay overtime based upon an employee’s “regular rate” of pay. The regular rate is not simply the employee’s base…
Q. We use the tip credit for servers who work in our restaurant. When service is slow, we ask our servers to pitch in with other jobs around the restaurant, like sweeping up the dining room and cleaning the restroom. Can we still take the tip credit for time that our servers spend working on these tasks? A. Short answer: it depends. Long answer: Specifically, it depends on whether the extra duties assigned to your servers are directly related to the servers’ “tip-producing occupation.” The U.S. Department of Labor recently re-issued a previously-withdrawn opinion letter dealing with this subject. The letter…