Evan Pontz

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Employers with more than 50 employees are usually aware that the Family Medical Leave Act (FMLA) may apply to their business and their workers. That law, which provides for protected leave for employees in certain situations and various amounts (most often up to 12 weeks of leave), can sound simple but is very complex in its details.
Continue Reading What is an Overnight Stay for Inpatient Care Under the FMLA?

Earlier this year, the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) issued new proposed regulations under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) to dramatically increase the minimum salary required for most exempt employees to remain exempt going forward.  The DOL regulations generated a huge number of comments, but now the DOL is getting ready to issue their final regulations and put the new requirements in place.
Continue Reading Wage & Hour Law Changes: What Does It All REALLY Mean?

After months of anticipation and many rumors about when the U.S. Department of Labor would release new proposed rules on which employees are eligible for overtime pay, the day has finally arrived. After a speech on the topic by President Obama the night before, the DOL publically announced on the morning of June 30th its proposed regulations, thereby starting the process necessary for the regulations to take effect. HR pros need to understand these new proposed regulations, but also the timeline they will be on before they can have the force of law.
Continue Reading New FLSA Regulations Are Here . . . But We’ve Got Miles To Go Before We Sleep

Our very own HR Law Matters contributor Jim McCabe has written an insightful analysis on whether employers can prohibit employees from secretly recording conversations in the workplace.  The article was published yesterday on Law 360 and can be viewed here.
Continue Reading Can Employers Prohibit Secret Workplace Recordings?

I recently read a brief article regarding the former Captain of “The Best Damn Ship in the Navy.”  The article, an interview with Capt. D. Michael Abrashoff, formerly Captain of the USS Benfold (shown below), specifically focuses on his view that safety must be a top priority in any workplace.  As he says, even on a ship safety is something that you cannot just “order.” Rather, safety is something that has to be part of every individual’s daily thinking — from the Captain all the way down to the lowest ranking sailor.
Continue Reading “You Can’t Order Safety”

If you have a union in your workplace, or if unions have tried to organize workers in your workplace, you know that unions need ways to communicate with your employees.  Before the current digital age, unions relied primarily on communicating through informational picketing and leafleting, posters and mailings, and individual and group meeting to encourage unionization or to communicate with members and represented employees.  Today, with the modern workplace and internet-connected workers, communications can be conducted far more quickly, efficiently, cheaply and often more effectively through electronic means, such as email.  But historically, unions have not been permitted access to company email systems.  The current rule is that “employees have no statutory right to use the[ir] Employer’s e-mail system” for non-work-related purposes. If unions and the current Presidential administration get their way, that all might change.
Continue Reading Labor Unions Want Your Email System Too!

President Obama instructed the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) yesterday to change regulations to expand the Fair Labor Standards Act’s (FLSA) overtime provisions, in an effort to provide time-and-a-half wages to more employees.  The President signed a memorandum instructing his Secretary of Labor Thomas Perez to “update” the DOL’s regulations regarding which employees are exempt from the FLSA’s coverage, and which employees are non-exempt, and thus must be paid time-and-a-half their regular wage rate for all hours worked beyond 40 hours in a week.  The White House also issued a “fact-sheet” on the issue.

While it is not clear exactly what the DOL may do in response to the President’s direction, many feel that one likely step will be an attempt by the DOL to amend the FLSA’s regulations to raise the salary requirement employees must meet to qualify as an exempt executive, administrative or professional employee.  The current salary requirement is at least $455 per week, an amount established with the last set of DOL changes to the FLSA’s regulations back in 2004.  (Prior to 2004, the salary amount was $250, a number which had stayed constant since 1975.)Continue Reading President Pushes for More Overtime

Last March, I wrote about a lawsuit the EEOC filed against a department store that allegedly refused to hire a woman because she was pregnant.  In the post “Thoughtless Comments Make For Easy Pickings,” I noted some interesting accusations contained in the case — including that the pregnant woman claimed she was told that the hiring manager “had not had much luck hiring pregnant women” and that she should re-apply “after giving birth.”
Continue Reading The Actual Cost of Thoughtless Comments