Skip to main content

What I’ve Been Reading This Week


With a trial yesterday, most of my week was spent preparing exhibits, witness testimony, trial briefs, etc.  Unfortunately, that left me with little time to read through articles and cases.  Nevertheless, I did come across two topics worth highlighting this week.

As always, below are a couple articles that caught my eye this week.


Amidst Legislative Efforts to Curb Minimum Wage Hike, Arkansas Governor Voices Opposition

Earlier this week, a House panel in the Arkansas Legislature endorsed legislation which would curb minimum wage hikes for certain workers in the state, previously approved by voters last November.  Under the legislation currently pending in the House, small businesses, some nonprofits, and teenagers would be exempted from the minimum wage hike.  (Readers might recall that voters had previously approved a minimum wage hike from $8.50/hour up to $11/hour by 2021.). However, Republican Governor Asa Hutchinson stated his opposition to the legislation as did the state GOP.  Even with this pronounced opposition, the sponsor of the legislation indicated the intent to still bring the matter to a vote.  It will be interesting to see how this plays out in the coming weeks.  With notable Republicans in the state starting to make their opposition known, this proposal might not have the legs to make it through the Legislature.


California Employers: Your Employees Are Entitled to Reporting Time Pay If Required to Call In to Confirm Shift

At the start of February, the California Court of Appeal, Second Appellate District, Divison Three issued a decision in Ward v. Tilly’s, Inc. in which the Court reversed the lower court’s order and held that an employee that is ‘on call’ and required to call in two hours before their shift starts to confirm if they are actually needed for work are entitled to pay for this ‘on call’ period.  Under Wage Order 7, employers in California are required to pay employees “reporting time pay” for each workday “an employee is required to report for work and does report, but is not put to work or is furnished less than half said employee’s usual or scheduled day’s work.”  The employee that filed suit in this case argued that having to contact the employer two hours before the shift was to start triggered the reporting for work requirement of Wage Order 7.  The Court of Appeal agreed, unswayed by the employer’s contention that reporting for work required the employee to physically appear at the worksite at the start of a scheduled shift to trigger the reporting for work requirement.  Consequently, it was held that on call scheduling placed a burden on these employees to not make social plans, go to school, or schedule other events, such that the employer not being required to pay these employees reporting time pay would be abuse of Wage Order 7.  Although the Court’s opinion is rather lengthy here, it is a well written opinion that is worth reading.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

NLRB: Discussion Among Employees About Tip Pooling is Protected Concerted Activity

  This Advice Memorandum from the National Labor Relations Board’s Associate General Counsel, Jayme Sophir, addressed whether employees which discussed and complained about tip pooling at work constituted protected concerted activity. In relevant part, an employer in New York operated a chain of steakhouses.  While tip pooling was in place at these steakhouses, some of the employees objected to it on the grounds that it was not transparent and improperly divided tips among the workers.  Employees were told not to complain or talk to each other about the tip pool and were told that doing so would endanger their jobs.  Despite the employer later attempting to provide some clarity as to how the tips were being divided, rancor still existed among some employees.  At one point, the employees were told by a general manager that some employees that had been talking about the tip pool were “cleared out” and the employer would continue to do so. In the Advice Memorandum,...

Utah Non-Compete Bill Falters in House

Last month, a non-compete bill sponsored by Representative Brian Greene (Republican from Pleasant Grove) & up for vote in the Utah House failed to make it through the Legislature.  The bill sought to ban enforcement of non-competes if they came after a worker was already employed, given no compensation (such as a bonus or promotion) for signing the non-compete, and laid off within six months.  However, by a 22 - 49 vote, the bill was resoundingly defeated after some business groups lobbied to kill the non-compete bill.  One group in particular, The Free Enterprise Utah coalition, argued that the Utah State Legislature should hold off on any changes to non compete laws in the state until a survey about non competes was done among Utah businesses.  Representative Greene had countered this claim and argued that a survey was not needed to show that the current non compete laws in the states allowed many businesses, including some small high tech companies i...

What I've Been Reading This Week

Recently, Equal Employment Opportunity Commission Commissioner, Chai Feldblum, had her re-nomination on the brink, after Utah Republican Senator Mike Lee took steps to block it .  Readers might have heard that late last week, Commissioner Feldblum's re-nomination quietly slipped away and she tweeted out a thank you to supporters and friends, acknowledging that her time at the EEOC was over.  While there has not been much in the way of a further update in regard to that ongoing saga, we wait to see how things will play out at the EEOC, now that it has lost a quorum until additional Commissioners are confirmed by the Senate. For the time being, there are other developments for readers to review this week.  In particular, I call attention to the article on managing a wage & hour audit by the Department of Labor as well as steps an employer can take to better ensure compliance with the ADA. As always, below are a couple articles that caught my eye this week. ...