Employment Law Information

Archive for the ‘Wages’ Category

By Elizabeth Ryan

The U.S. Department of Labor’s Wage and Hour Division receives numerous complaints every year from employees who were wrongfully denied overtime pay. While some employers violate federal overtime law without intention, others purposefully deny overtime pay to eligible workers. By using common overtime scams, employers cheat their workers out of time-and-a-half compensation for overtime hours. Luckily, many common overtime scams have been identified so that workers can fully understand their rights to overtime.

A common overtime scam, working “off the clock” occurs when an employer forces an employee to work without being clocked in. For instance, an employer may instruct a worker to clock out and remain on the premises to complete the tasks they should have finished during the day. In another example, an employer may require their employees to work on the weekends without being clocked in. In general, workers can identify and avoid this common overtime scam by understanding that time spent working for an employer should be considered as hours worked for the purpose of calculating overtime pay, regardless of whether the employer wants the worker “on the clock.”

Employee misclassification is another common overtime scam. Misclassification occurs when an employer intentionally misclassifies a worker into an exempt category; they trick the worker into thinking that their job title makes them ineligible for overtime pay. However, federal overtime law states that an employee’s job duties, not their job title, is the main factor in determining who can receive overtime pay.

For instance, employee misclassification commonly occurs when an employer labels a worker as an “independent contractor” to avoid paying overtime. However, if the worker does not meet the test for determining independent contractors, they may be eligible to collect overtime pay for hours worked in excess of 40 in a single workweek. Another common example of employee misclassification is labeling workers as “managers” without allowing these employees the opportunity to perform any managerial duties.

Paying straight time instead of time-and-a-half compensation is another common overtime scam. Federal overtime law states that non-exempt employees should be paid 1.5 times their regular rate when working more than 40 hours in a single workweek. For instance, if an employee is usually paid $8 per hour, they should receive $12 for every hour of overtime. Paying non-exempt workers less than 1.5 times their regular rate for overtime hours is a violation of overtime law.

These are the most common forms of overtime scams. Other scams include short-changing hours (not including short breaks in an employee’s total hours worked) and providing “comp” time instead of overtime pay. By informing yourself on the basics of overtime law, you can help ensure you do not fall victim to an overtime scam.

Liz Ryan is a Writing and Content Specialist for IQOvertime. Visit IQOvertime today to learn more about overtime scams and the basics of overtime law.

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Competition in the workforce can incite a healthy dose of motivation amongst coworkers to succeed; however, when employees are competing for wage increases or promotions, things can get hostile, especially if someone believes they are being treated unfairly. Although employers are not supposed to evaluate employees based on any non-work related criteria, they oftentimes do. Despite fair-pay laws, many employers consider discriminatory factors when evaluating employees for pay raises.

Have You Been Discriminated Against?

In order to prevent discriminatory practices in the workplace, here is a list of things for workers to look out for:

• Have you repeatedly been denied pay raises without explanation?

• Have your coworkers received pay raises, but you have not?

• Do you believe pay raises are determined by an employer’s personal preference instead of performance?

• Have you been denied a pay increase because of your gender, race, or political beliefs?

If you have noticed any of the above behaviors, you may be the victim of pay-raise discrimination, and you may be eligible for compensation for wage-losses and emotional distress.

Who Is Discriminated Against?

According to recent studies, women and racial minorities are most commonly the victims of pay-raise discrimination. As of 2009, women still only earn approximately 77% of what their comparable male counterparts earn. Additionally, college educated African-Americans earn 78% of similarly educated Caucasians, while Hispanics earn only 75% of an equivalent Caucasian’s salary.

Injustices in the workplace affect the lives of millions of Americans every day. If you believe your employer is guilty of workplace discrimination, it is important that you defend the rights of you and your coworkers by seeking pursuing legal action.

What to Do If an Employer Discriminates?

In order to take action against discriminatory employers, you must hire an attorney. After discussing your case, if your lawyer believes that you have a solid case, they will help you file a claim against your employer. Afterward, each side will collect evidence that supports their case. Depending on the extent of your employer’s discrimination, you may be offered a settlement, in which case the dispute will be handled outside of the courtroom, or you may have to go to court and present your case before a judge.

Regardless of whether you settle out of court or appear before a judge, if discrimination is proven, you will be rewarded a monetary sum as recompense for the injustices you endured.

For more information on pay raise discrimination and filing a claim, contact the San Antonio employment lawyers of Melton & Kumler, LLP.

Joseph Devine

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The Industrial Revolution has brought radical changes in the working place. This historical phenomenon swept much of the world, especially Europe where it started and the Americas. One radical change it brought to the working place is the deterioration of working conditions as the number of workers or employees rose meteorically. In this regard, the government would need to pass laws protecting the rights of workers. These protective laws paved the way for the creation of modern employment law in the United States.

What is Employment Law?

The Employment Law protects employees or workers from any kind of mistreatment on the workplace. The poor working conditions that resulted from Industrial Revolution led to the creation of laws establishing fair wages, limiting the number of working hours in a week and prohibiting child labor. Other labor related laws also include laws regulating the cleanliness of the workplace, protection of employees from any kind of hazardous accidents.

Employment Laws have been passed standardizing the provision of benefits by the employers for the employees.

Employment Law includes health insurance that benefits workers if medical problems arise due to poor work condition or unsanitary workplace. In addition, Employment Law also covers protection against discrimination in the workplace based on religion, race, gender and other factors.

Let us focus more on employment discrimination laws that protect employees from discrimination in the workplace. The US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) enforces several employment discrimination laws that protect employees from compensation discrimination. One of these laws is the Equal Pay Act of 1963. The passage of this law is milestone in labor history as it ensures that there shall be no wage discrimination based on sex in the workplace.

The Equal Pay Act

As stated above, this law requires that no wage discrimination shall take place based on gender. This law requires that men and women be given equal wage for the same work rendered in the same workplace. The jobs need not to be the same, but they must be essentially equal.

Further, the EPA states that it is not the job titles that matter in determining whether jobs are substantially equal but the job content. Men and women alike are protected by EPA as it prohibits unequal wages to both genders that perform a job that requires substantially equal amount of work, skill and responsibility in the same workplace and same working conditions. Pay differentials are only allowed when they are based on merit, seniority, quantity or quality of production or other factors than gender.

Employees expect that their employers will adhere to the Employment Laws discussed above. Moreover, basic standards of fairness in terms of employment decisions shall be observed in the workplace, like equal page for equal job for both sexes. Sometimes, however, these labor laws are not adhered to by employers. If you are a victim of unfair labor practice, do not hesitate to fight for your rights. An experienced civil rights lawyer or employment lawyer might help you build a strong case against your abusive employer.

Charlie Prenicolas is a legal researcher who writes informative articles on Illinois civil rights, medical malpractice, and personal injury cases. For more information on reputable Chicago civil right lawyers, kindly visit Dolan Law Offices today.

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Many restaurants and bars across the country require their employees to pool their tips into one big reserve which is then divided across all employees evenly at the end of the night. Playing into this is that the restaurant may pay the employees less than minimum wage and then use the tips to bring the wage up to minimum wage or above.

One of the big issues in tip sharing comes up when those that directly earn tips share their tips with those that don’t earn tips. For example, requiring the servers and bartenders to share their tips with the busboys or cleaning staff of the restaurant. The servers and bartenders did all the work to earn the tip and yet they are required to share their tips with the staff of the restaurant that doesn’t bring in any tip money. Yes, they help the overall atmosphere but they don’t actually bring in tips.

Another problem with tip sharing is that it doesn’t necessarily spread evenly. Someone with 10 tables at a time should reasonably expect to earn more in tips than someone working only 5 tables. Under pooling and sharing, the tips aren’t an extra in addition to minimum wage. They make up the difference between minimum wage and the base rate meaning that it doesn’t matter how many tables a person works, the amount at the end of the night will be the same.

Sometimes a restaurant will opt to divide the total tip haul at the end of a pay period. Some restaurants may not divide the tips based on the number of hours worked but rather award a flat rate based on the number of employees. This is not fair to those that both work a lot of hours and more tables as they get the same amount as a person who works one shift during the entire pay period.

Overall, there are a huge number of problems with the concept known as tip sharing. Many of the tip sharing schemes have been deemed illegal both by legislatures and courts across the country. This, however, does not stop restaurants and bars alike from attempting to find ways to use tips to ensure that all of their employees make minimum wage without spending more out of pocket. The biggest problem with this system is that the tips aren’t tips anymore if they are used to even out salary. They are then salary except they can’t be fully depended on.

The Houston employment lawyers of the Ross Law Group are fully versed in the issues surrounding tip sharing and restaurants in general.

Joseph Devine

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The Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act was one of the first pieces of legislation signed by President Barack Obama, being signed into law on January 29, 2009. Its purpose is to combat wage discrepancies between male and female employees, and it amends the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Age and Discrimination Act of 1967.

The Act is a response to the Supreme Court’s ruling in the case Ledbetter v. Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co., which held that an employee had 180 days from the date a salary was agreed upon to file a lawsuit attesting pay discrimination. That meant that a female employee had only six months to establish that she was being paid less than her male counterparts doing the same job and then to file a lawsuit against the company.

The problem with this system is that a female employee would have to somehow figure out in her first six months at the job what everyone else was making and then file a lawsuit before the statute of limitations expired. So imagine that a woman has been working at a job for a few years, making less money than men doing the same work but not knowing it. When she found out that she had been making less than those men across several years, she would be unable to do anything about it because the statute of limitations is six months from when she agreed to a salary.

The Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act was first proposed in 2007, shortly after the original court ruling, but was defeated by the more Republican 110th United States Congress. Democrats were quick to criticize their Republican counterparts, asserting that they were essentially supporting wage discrimination by making it difficult to redress wage discrepancies. As a result, when the more heavily Democrat 111th session began, the retooled and restructured Lilly Ledbetter act was one of the first pieces of legislation passed. The Act established that the 180-day statute of limitations actually resets each time a discriminatory paycheck is issued. So as long as you are being paid an unfair wage, you are able to file litigation against your employer. The Act makes it much easier for employees to demand compensation for unfair and illegal wage discrimination.

For more information about the legal aspects of wage discrimination, go to http://www.austinemploymentattorney.com

Joseph Devine

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There are several employment discrimination laws enforced by the US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) to ensure that American citizens are protected from compensation discrimination. Among them are the Equal Pay Act of 1963, Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Age Discrimination Act of 1967, and the American Disabilities Act of 1990.

The Equal Pay Act of 1963 is an amendment to the Fair Labors Standards Act that prohibits wage discrimination based on sex. It enforces that men and women should receive equal pay for equal work rendered in the same establishment. It doesn’t necessarily mean that the jobs are identical but rather substantially equal in terms of its nature and responsibilities. There is an emphasis on job content rather than job title.

In order to establish that jobs are substantially equal in nature, factors such as skill, effort, responsibility, work conditions, and establishment should be considered. Skills refer to the person’s education, training, and experience. The emphasis is on the skill required by the job and not necessarily the skill that the person already has. Even if one has a masters degree in chemistry but works as a call center agent, it shouldn’t matter because a masters is not required skill for the job.

Effort, on the other hand, pertains to the amount of physical and mental strength exerted in order to do a job. Responsibility refers to the degree of a person’s accountability in reference to the final output or the number of people handled by that person. It is only acceptable for a person who has greater effort and responsibility to receive a higher compensation than those with less effort and lighter responsibilities.

It should also be established that the employees involved are working in the same work conditions. This includes the physical surrounding such as temperature and ventilation, and the risk factors of that particular workplace. The Equal Pay Act is applicable to jobs within the same company location or establishment.

The Congress initially justified that sex discrimination in the workplace should be abolished because it promotes unequal opportunities for men and women which results to unfavorable living standards, health and efficiency for workers. Sex discrimination prevents the maximum utilization of the labor resource. It also causes a lot of labor disputes that disrupt the flow of business.

Joanne Aika Castillo is a legal researcher who writes informative articles on employment law, civil rights, medical malpractice, and personal injury cases in Illinois. For information on Illinois civil rights attorneys, please visit Dolan Law Offices today.

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