Health Law Advisor

What is the 8 and 80 overtime system?

The Fair Labor Standards Act (“FLSA”) generally requires covered employers to pay non-exempt employees overtime for all hours worked over 40 hours in a work week. However, the FLSA provides an exception for certain employers in the health care industry, who are instead permitted to adopt a fixed work period of 14 consecutive days and pay overtime for all hours worked: (a) over 8 hours in a single day, or (b) over 80 hours in a 14-day work period.

Under the 8 and 80 overtime system, for example, an employee who works a 12-hour shift would be entitled ...

Health care registry companies provide families and their loved ones with peace of mind by providing matchmaking and referral services for qualified, pre-screened and vetted home caregivers. They often also provide administrative services. As part of the “gig economy,” health care registries often tread a fine line in classifying caregivers as independent contractors rather than employees. A new Field Assistance Bulletin (“Bulletin”), “Determining Whether Nurse or Caregiver Registries are Employers of the Caregiver,” issued on July 13, 2018, by the Wage and ...

On January 8, 2018, former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie signed new legislation (the “Amendment”) amending the New Jersey Law Against Discrimination (“NJLAD”) to add breastfeeding as a protected class under the law. The Amendment, which takes effect immediately, makes it unlawful to discriminate or retaliate against an employee that the employer knows, or should know, is either breastfeeding or expressing milk for her infant child.

The Amendment also requires employers to provide reasonable accommodations to nursing women, unless it would result in an undue ...

Since 2000, the number of wage and hour cases filed under the Fair Labor Standards Act (“FLSA”) has increased by more than 450 percent, with the vast majority of those cases being filed as putative collective actions.  Under 29 U.S.C. § 216(b), employees may pursue FLSA claims on behalf of “themselves and other employees similarly situated,” provided that “[n]o employee shall be a party plaintiff to any such action unless he gives his consent in writing to become such a party and such consent is filed in the court in which such action is brought.”  Despite the prevalence of FLSA ...

Our colleague Jeffrey H. Ruzal, Senior Counsel at Epstein Becker Green, has a post on the Wage & Hour Defense Blog that will be of interest to many of our readers in the health care industry: “Decision Enjoining Federal Overtime Rule Changes Will Not Affect Proposed Increases Under New York State’s Overtime Laws.”

Following is an excerpt:

As we recently reported on our Wage & Hour Defense Blog, on November 22, 2016, a federal judge in the Eastern District of Texas issued a nationwide preliminary injunction enjoining the U.S. Department of Labor from implementing its new ...

[caption id="attachment_2451" align="alignright" width="113"] Maxine Neuhauser[/caption]

In conjunction with unveiling its Final Overtime Rule, the DOL announced a Time Limited Non-Enforcement Policy (“Policy”) for providers of Medicaid-funded services for individuals with intellectual or developmental disabilities in residential homes and facilities with 15 or fewer beds. Under the Policy, from December 1, 2016, to March 17, 2019, the DOL will not enforce the updated salary threshold of $913 per week for this subset of employers.

The Policy applies only to DOL ...

[caption id="attachment_2394" align="alignright" width="113"] Nathaniel M. Glasser[/caption]

In case you missed it, last week the U.S. Department of Labor (“DOL”) blogged about the misclassification of workers in the home care industry.  As a reminder, on October 1, 2013, the DOL issued its home care final rule, which (1) more narrowly defines the tasks that comprise exempt “companionship service” and (2) limits the exemptions for companionship services and live-in domestic service employees to individuals, families, or households using the service, and no longer ...

Employment Law This Week - a new video program from Epstein Becker Green - has a story this week on how the Supreme Court has cleared the way for the Department of Labor’s home care worker wage rule.

The high court recently denied a stay of the D.C. Circuit’s decision, and the new rule extending Fair Labor Standards Act protections to most home care workers will go into effect November 12, 2015. While the Department will not begin full enforcement until January 1, 2016, the new regulation will be immediately enforceable by private individuals and attorneys.

Regarding the Supreme Court’s Integrity Staffing Solutions v. Busk opinion, issued today, our colleague Michael Kun at Epstein Becker Green has posted “Supreme Court Holds That Time Spent in Security Screening Is Not Compensable Time” on one of our sister blogs, Wage & Hour Defense.

Following is an excerpt:

In order to prevent employee theft, some employers require their employees to undergo security screenings before leaving the employers’ facilities. That is particularly so with employers involved in manufacturing and retail sales, who must be concerned with ...

By: Michael F. McGahan

My colleagues have a new post that will help many of our readers at this time of year: “Summer’s Coming! How to Handle Unpaid Internships,” by Jeffrey M. Landes, Susan Gross Sholinsky, and Nancy L. Gunzenhauser.

Following is an excerpt:

A hot topic for every summer – but particularly this summer – is the status of unpaid interns. You are probably aware that several wage and hour lawsuits have been brought regarding the employment status of unpaid interns, particularly in the entertainment and publishing industries. The theory behind these cases is that ...

By:  Kara M. Maciel, Adam C. Solander and Lindsay A. Smith

As the Employer Mandate compliance deadline looms for employers under the Affordable Care Act (“ACA”) and employers are closely monitoring employee hours, it is critical that employers take appropriate and lawful steps to record all hours worked by an employee.  If employers try to play games and manipulate how time records are maintained, they could find themselves in hot water under both the ACA and the Fair Labor Standards Act (“FLSA”).

In what appears to be one of the first lawsuits challenging how hours are recorded ...

Our colleague Kara M. Maciel of Epstein Becker Green wrote a wage and hour update in this month’s Take 5 labor and employment newsletter.

Here’s a preview of the five items:

1. IRS Will Begin Taxing a Restaurant's Automatic Gratuities as Service Charges
2. The New DOL Secretary, Tom Perez, Spells Out the WHD's Enforcement Agenda
3. DOL Investigates Health Care Provider and Obtains $4 Million Settlement for Overtime Payments
4. Federal Court Strikes Down DOL Tip Pooling Rule
5. Take Preventative Steps When Facing WHD Audits

Read the full article here.

By Kara Maciel and Jordan Schwartz

On September 16, 2013, the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) announced that Harris Health System (“Harris”), a Houston health care provider of emergency, outpatient and inpatient medical services, has agreed to pay more than $4 million in back wages and damages to approximately 4,500 current and former employees for violations of the Fair Labor Standards Act’s overtime and recordkeeping provisions.  The DOL made this announcement after its Wage and Hour Division (“WHD”) completed a more than two-year investigation into the ...

By: Michael Thompson

The United States Supreme Court has ruled that pharmaceutical sales representatives (PSRs) are “outside salesmen” who are not entitled to overtime under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA). The high court’s ruling was predicated on its finding that, in the pharmaceutical industry’s “unique regulatory environment,” the commitments obtained by PSRs equate to traditional sales. Furthermore, the Supreme Court rebuked the Department of Labor (DOL) for “unfairly surprising” the industry by filing amicus briefs arguing that PSRs were not ...