Even as the Department of Labor (DOL) and Internal Revenue Service (IRS) begin scouring workplace records for the improper classification of employees as independent contractors, Congress is weighing in with patches to the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) to put some bite behind the bark.
Senator Sherrod Brown, D.-Ohio, has introduced the Employee Misclassification Protection Act [...]
Taking the stage in Chicago at what was once Jane Addams’ Hull House, where FDR Labor Secretary Frances Perkins got started, Obama Labor Secretary Hilda Solis launched a nationwide public awareness program called "We Can Help" on April 1.
"I have a message for those employers who break this nation’s labor laws and prey on vulnerable [...]
The Department of Labor (DOL) is launching a Wage and Hour (WHD) investigation of Denver area restaurants for compliance with overtime pay, working hours, and child labor, according to the local DOL office.
Chad Frasier, district director for the Wage and Hour Division in Denver, says that the restaurant industry has been targeted because of past [...]
Testifying before a House subcommittee, Department of Labor (DOL) Secretary Hilda Solis recently detailed plans for fiscal 2011 to use $1.7 billion out of a budget of $116.5 billion, along with 10,957 employees out of 17,800 total, for what she called "worker protection activities."
Plans also call for adding another 90 inspectors to the Wage and [...]
The Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs (OFCCP) is receiving a 33-percent budget increase for fiscal 2011 and will use the money to hire 213 new compliance officers and launch a more rigorous enforcement program.
The OFCCP is tasked with monitoring compliance with federal labor laws and regulations by contractors working on federal government contracts.
In announcing [...]
The Department of Labor (DOL) has released its agenda for the coming year, and it has a few surprises to spring on American business.
First (for discussion’s sake), the DOL wants each paycheck to come with a stub or explanation of hours worked, overtime paid and everything else that went into the computation of the amount.
Next, [...]
We’ve just posted a new white paper in that section on the Personnel Concepts new Web site entitled “Popular Misconceptions,” in which we examine the ingenious ways that employers seek to stay off the overtime-pay radar of the Department of Labor (DOL).
Let’s look at one of those methods: Say Employer A sends 20 hourly employees [...]
