Department of Labor Will Examine Pay Threshold, Management Exemption for Overtime

Posted by National Alliance for Fair Contracting on

It will likely be months before the Obama administration details the specific changes it plans for overtime rules, but officials are looking at making two significant shifts.

In a hearing this week, Labor Secretary Thomas E. Perez said the Department of Labor would study both raising the wage threshold and overturning the 2004 rule that made certain salaried employees exempt from overtime because they perform some managerial duties.

“There are two issues we are working on in the regulation,” Perez said. “Number one, what should the threshold be, and secondly, how does the test work.”

Perez also said the current structure of the managerial exemption keeps deserving workers frozen out of overtime. “You can work 1 percent of your time in a management function and 99 percent of your time stocking shelves and you will be an exempt employee under the current regulation,” he said

AG Announces Partnership to Combat Misclassification

Posted by National Alliance for Fair Contracting on

NEW YORK – Attorney General Eric T. Schneider­­man has signed a memorandum of understanding that allows his office to cooperate with both the federal and New York Departments of Labor to battle worker misclassification.

The three offices will share information in an effort to catch employers that wrongly classify employees as independent contractors.

The move puts New York on board a federal initiative launched in 2010 as part of the Obama administration’s “Middle Class Task Force.” To date, California, Colo­­rado, Con­­nec­­ti­­cut, Hawaii, Illinois, Iowa, Lou­­isi­­ana, Maryland, Massachusetts, Min­­ne­­sota, Missouri, Montana, Utah and Wash­­ington have signed similar agreements. The initiative claims to have collected $18.2 million in back wages for over 19,000 employees.

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Maryland Approves Wage Bill for School Construction

Posted by National Alliance for Fair Contracting on

ANNAPOLIS, Md. – A measure to expand Maryland’s prevailing wage law has been passed by the Maryland General Assembly.

The state Senate passed the bill 32-15 on Wednesday, sending the measure to Gov. Martin O’Malley.

 The bill lowers the share of total school construction project costs paid by the state from 50 percent to 25 percent for the prevailing wage law to apply.

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US Labor Department Recovers More Than $277,000 in Back Wages for 233 Janitorial Service Employees at New Orleans Convention Center

Posted by National Alliance for Fair Contracting on

NEW ORLEANS — Empire Janitorial Sales and Services Inc. has paid $277,565 in overtime back wages to 233 current and former janitorial service workers employed by Acadian Payroll Services LLC after an investigation by the U.S. Department of Labor’s Wage and Hour Division found violations of the Fair Labor Standards Act’s overtime and record-keeping provisions.

The investigation, conducted by the division’s New Orleans District Office, found that employees were wrongfully classified as independent contractors and paid an hourly wage with no overtime wages of time and one-half their regular rate of pay for hours worked over 40 in a workweek. Additionally, Acadian Payroll Services did not establish a seven-day workweek and failed to maintain proper records of weekly hours worked by its employees.

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Record $17.7 Million in Unpaid Wages Returned to Workers on Public Works Projects in 2013

Posted by National Alliance for Fair Contracting on

OAKLAND, Calif., March 20, 2014 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ —

California Labor Commissioner Julie A. Su announced that in 2013, over 10,000 workers statewide received checks which returned a cumulative $17.7 million in unpaid prevailing wages on public works projects across the state.

The payments were collected from public works investigations that uncovered prevailing wage and other violations of state public works laws in over 400 publicly-funded projects. In 2012, the Labor Commissioner’s office collected the highest amount in the last decade when it reinstated $8.2 million to approximately 7,400 public works employees.  The $17.7 million figure for 2013 doubles the record set in the previous year.

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Presidential Memorandum — Updating and Modernizing Overtime Regulations

Posted by National Alliance for Fair Contracting on

March 13, 2014

MEMORANDUM FOR THE SECRETARY OF LABOR

SUBJECT: Updating and Modernizing Overtime Regulations

The Fair Labor Standards Act (the “Act”), 29 U.S.C. 201 et seq., provides basic rights and wage protections for American workers, including Federal minimum wage and overtime requirements. Most workers covered under the Act must receive overtime pay of at least 1.5 times their regular pay rate for hours worked in excess of 40 hours per week.

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The Department of Labor Has Your Back

Posted by National Alliance for Fair Contracting on

The federal Department of Labor (DOL) budget for fiscal year 2015 is official, and it includes new programs and additional protections for workers and employees. This is exciting news for millions of Americans, including the long-term unemployed, students who want to work when they graduate, and current employees whose employers may not be following the law as they should. Check out the changes that are being put in place to help you.

The Death of an Employer Scam

Posted by National Alliance for Fair Contracting on

One of the most pervasive scams that employers use to lower their workers’ wages is misclassification – that is, turning their workers into independent contractors or temps when they are actually employees. Misclassification shouldn’t be mistaken for the whim of an errant employer. On the contrary, it’s a strategy that has been used to transform entire industries.

From an employer’s perspective, the benefits of misclassification are clear. Turning a worker into a temp or a free agent obviates any need to provide him with benefits. It shields the employer from legal liability for health and safety violations, for industrial accidents, or from wage and hour violations. It invariably lowers such workers wages as well. It makes it impossible for workers to form unions.

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Prevailing Wage Bill Sent to Appropriations In Unusual Last-Minute Switch

Posted by National Alliance for Fair Contracting on

In a surprise move just before a full House vote Wednesday, a bill to align construction workers’ pay on some state projects with federal wage standards was bumped to another committee.

H.878 would replace Vermont’s prevailing wage statute with the federal Davis Bacon Act. State and federal rules apply only to certain government-funded projects. The law does not affect public construction or private enterprises.

Unions and labor advocates, backed by the Democratic caucus this session, support the switch. They say adopting the federal standard would “level the playing field” for union shops and contractors who pay benefits.

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United States: Illinois Supreme Court Upholds One Of The Nation’s Strictest Worker Misclassification Laws; Employers May Face Millions Of Dollars In Penalties

Posted by National Alliance for Fair Contracting on

Worker misclassification is now a bet-the-company issue.

On February 21, 2004, the Illinois Supreme Court rejected a constitutional challenge to Illinois’s Employee Classification Act (the “ECA”), a law that defines most individuals who perform construction-related services as employees of the company who retains them, even if the relationship is set up as an independent contractor relationship.  Illinois’s ECA is one of the strictest worker misclassification statutes in the country.

Bartlow v. Costigan arose out of a preliminary finding that a small construction firm, Jack’s Roofing, had misclassified 10 workers as independent contractors instead of employees for periods ranging from 8 to 160 days in 2008.  The Illinois Department of Labor calculated a potential penalty for having misclassified these 10 workers as $1.6 Million.  Under the Illinois misclassification law, each day that each worker is misclassified is considered a separate violation, with fines of up to $1,000 for a first offense.  Willful violations result in triple damages.  Subsequent violations double the penalties again.

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(Please note that the date of this court decision is actually February 21, 2014)