The wage & hour attorneys at Martin & Martin routinely receive telephone calls from employees asking whether it is legal for their employer to deduct work items from their paycheck. There are certain items that an employer may deduct from an employee’s paycheck. However, not all deductions are legal. The…
“When employers misclassify employees as independent contractors and fail to pay workers their hard-earned wages, the Department of Labor will hold them legally accountable.” This was the strong statement by the DOL when speaking about a medical staffing agency that violated the federal law, the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA),…
A California silk-screening company agreed to pay over $100,000 in unpaid overtime wages and an equal amount in liquidated damages to workers. “Celebrities, retailers and manufacturers profit from T-shirts sold for $40 or more, while the low-wage workers who produce the merchandise work overtime to meet consumer demand and become…
“Restaurant industry employers must know and comply with federal requirements to claim the tip credit,” says the Department of Labor (DOL). The DOL recently found a restaurant in violation of the federal tip pool regulations that protect tipped employees’ earnings. In the case, the restaurant required the tipped employees to…
One of the biggest aspects of the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) that employers continue to violate is misclassifying workers as independent contractors rather than employees. Employers receive massive benefits by misclassifying workers as independent contractors, including not having to offer health insurance or pay minimum or overtime wages. However,…
On January 13, 2022, Martin & Martin, filed a federal lawsuit against Onyx Gentlemen’s Club in Atlanta on behalf of several strippers to recover owed wages and fees. Onyx reopened in February, 2021 and classified its dancers as independent contractors as opposed to employees. As independent contractors, Onyx did not…
Companies are requiring employees to be vaccinated with the stated purpose of wanting to protect other employees, customers and visitors. Employees are being made to choose between getting vaccinated or possibly losing their jobs. The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) has stepped in and identified two possible legal reasons an…
The Fair Labor Standards Act requires that both private and federal employers in the United States pay hourly (non-exempt) workers overtime at a minimum of 1.5x’s the normal hourly rate for any hours past forty hours in a workweek. Now that you know what consists of a workweek and how…
Now that we’ve established the general mechanics of how you accrue overtime, you might have gone back to look at your previous paystubs and noticed that you haven’t been paid the overtime that you were due as an hourly worker. The Fair Labor Standards Act and subsequent legal precedent accounted…
Photo by Erwan Hesry on Unsplash With the holidays around the corner, many hourly workers are thinking about picking up extra shifts to supplement their normal income to pay for the festivities of the holiday season. Before you do that, especially if you’re a part-time worker, here’s how those hours…