Tag: Department of Labor

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Wage and hour violations cost restaurant $697K

wage and hour violations, Tank Noodle

The U.S. Department of Labor under the Biden administration is ramping up its enforcement of wage and hour violations as a popular Chicago restaurant whose employees often worked for tips only was fined nearly $700,000.

The department’s Wage and Hour Division recovered $697,295 in back wages for 60 employees following an investigation of Tank Noodle Inc. Investigators found the employer owed some workers more than $10,000 each in back wages and identified numerous violations of the Fair Labor Standards Act’s minimum wage and overtime requirements.

Inaccurate time and attendance records

The agency also found the business owner failed to keep accurate records of the number of hours employees worked, as required by law.

In October 2020, the wage and hour division notified Tank Noodle, a popular Vietnamese restaurant in Chicago’s trendy Uptown neighborhood, that they were in violation of the FLSA. Tank Noodle signed an agreement to pay the back wages they owed Dec. 7, 2020.

Using an effective time and attendance system helps prevent the kind of wage and hour violations that led to the steep penalty incurred by Tank Noodle, said Tasmin Tresize, president of Workforce.com.

“While it’s unclear what type of workforce management system was utilized, it has evidently led to major violations in the wage and hour code,” Tresize said.

Shortly after the November presidential election, Michael Lotito, an attorney with Littler in San Francisco and co-chair of Littler’s Workplace Policy Institute, offered his thoughts on changes in Labor Department enforcement under the Biden administration. He was quoted as saying the division will likely revisit overtime standards and issue rules dealing with pay entitlement for off-the-clock work, like checking email from home. 

“Enforcement will be aggressive, especially against certain industries like fast food, janitorial, construction and other targets. The department will also coordinate with state DOLs to cooperate with one another as investigations progress,” Lotito said. 

Large amount of back wages owed

The Tank Noodle investigation recovered a considerable amount of back wages for 60 employees in an industry whose essential workers are often among the lowest paid, said Wage and Hour Division District Director Thomas Gauza in Chicago.

“Failing to accurately record the hours employees work does not prevent a federal investigation, the discovery of violations and ultimately, back wage recovery,” Gauza said in a press statement. “This case shows that employers that attempt to gain an unfair competitive advantage by flouting the law will be held accountable.”

Violations of tip pooling, overtime requirements

Investigators found that Tank Noodle employed some servers to work only for tips, failing to pay them any direct wages, as the law requires. Tank Noodle also shorted servers when the employer pooled tips each day, and divided them evenly among all staff, which illegally included management, according to the Labor Department.

The FLSA does not permit management to participate in tip pooling arrangements. The restaurant violated overtime requirements when it paid some workers flat amounts per day, regardless of the number of hours that they worked, the Labor Department said. Doing so resulted in violations when those employees worked more than 40 hours per week but the employer failed to pay overtime.

Tresize noted that as the Labor Department looks to be taking a more aggressive approach to each case, “It’s important that businesses invest in solutions to reduce their noncompliance risk.”

Effective restaurant employee scheduling best practices

Using best practices for an effective restaurant employee schedule will boost wage-and-hour compliance, avoid understaffing and labor cost overruns. One way to start scheduling in advance without the hassle of paperwork is with an online restaurant scheduling system.

See how to build your restaurant’s employee work schedule with ease and remain in compliance with all labor laws. Sign up for a free trial of Workforce.com’s shift scheduling software today.

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Have you felt the pain of a wage-and-hour investigation or lawsuit?

wage-and-hour
For the past three years, the Department of Labor has been trying to get employees PAID for their unpaid overtime and minimum wages.
That’s PAID, as in the Payroll Audit Independent Determination program, a creation of the Trump administration that allowed employers to self-report FLSA violations to the Department of Labor without risk of litigation, enforcement proceedings, or liquidated damages.

As of last week, however, the PAID program is history, as the DOL announced its immediate end.

From the DOL’s news release:

“Workers are entitled to every penny they have earned,” said Wage and Hour Division Principal Deputy Administrator Jessica Looman. “The Payroll Audit Independent Determination program deprived workers of their rights and put employers that play by the rules at a disadvantage. The U.S. Department of Labor will rigorously enforce the law, and we will use all the enforcement tools we have available.”

Pay close attention to that last sentence: “The U.S. Department of Labor will rigorously enforce the law, and we will use all the enforcement tools we have available.” The era of federal agencies playing nice with employers through education and outreach is over. At least for the next four years, businesses should expect agency priorities to be enforcement, not education.

This means that if you have not recently audited all of your employment practices, your time is running out.
In the context of the FLSA, the question is not whether companies need to audit their wage and hour compliance, but whether they properly prioritize doing so before someone calls them on it.
It is immeasurably less expensive to get out in front of a potential problem and audit on the front-end instead of litigating or settling a claim on the back end. The time for companies to get their hands around these issues is now, and not when employees, their lawyers, or the DOL start asking the difficult questions about how employees are paid.
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Biden calls for unemployment benefits to employees who refuse to work because of COVID

employment law, labor law, overtime records

Late last week, President Biden signaled that part of his overall plan to provide economic relief for American families and businesses amid the COVID-19 crisis is to broaden the availability of unemployment benefits to employees who quit their jobs related to Covid.

Specifically, the president is “asking the U.S. Department of Labor to consider clarifying that workers who refuse unsafe working conditions can still receive unemployment insurance.”

Allowing employees who quit in the name of “safety” to receive unemployment benefits presents a potential staffing nightmare for employers, especially considering that the America Rescue Plan (Biden’s the $1.9 trillion stimulus package being debated on Capitol Hill) proposes an additional $400 per week unemployment payments through the end of September. In Ohio, for example, that payment would increase the maximum weekly unemployment benefit to $1,072 (equivalent to an hourly wage of $26.80 or an annual salary of $55,744). At those numbers, lots of employees might opt to leave their jobs and take an extended, well-compensated vacation until the pandemic ends.

Allowing employees to qualify for unemployment merely by “refusing unsafe working conditions, which would make the employees the masters of whether or not they qualify, I proposed that the DOL instead limit qualification to employees who have tangible evidence of a health or safety violation by the employer that does not allow the employee to practice social distancing, hygiene, wear protective equipment, or otherwise unreasonably exposes the employee to a greater risk of contracting COVID-19.” A great starting point is the new COVID guidance President Biden has ordered OSHA to draft and emergency temporary standards Biden has ordered it to consider.

We need to make sure that we have rules that strike the proper balance between employees who have a legitimate reason not to work because of COVID-19, and employees who simply don’t want to work. Merely allowing employees to make that decision in their own exercise of discretion, and paying them a substantial benefit as a result, does not strike any balance at all.

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COVID-19, hazard pay and overtime

Wage and hour compliance is complicated enough for employers. Layer a pandemic on top of wage and hour compliance, and you have an absolute nightmare for companies.

Consider, for example, hazard pay.

Suppose you are a private-sector employer that decides to offer your employees a monetary incentive to return or remain at work during the pandemic. Must you include this hazard pay in the regular rate when calculating the overtime premium for non-exempt employees receiving this payment?

According to the Department of Labor, the answer is yes.

Yes. Payments your employer provides you to perform work constitutes compensation for employment that must be included in the regular rate, subject to eight exclusions described in section 7(e) of the FLSA. None of those exclusions apply to the incentive payments described above.

The answer changes, however, if the payments are made pursuant to a state or local government program, directly from the government or indirectly passed through the employer.
Bottom line? Wage and hour issues are complex; pandemic wage and hour issues are even more complex. If you have any doubt whatsoever about whether you are correctly paying your employees, reach out to your friendly neighborhood employment lawyer for guidance.
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Inside the DOL’s changes to the final rule interpreting the FFCRA

COVID-19, coronavirus, public health crisis

The United States District Court for the Southern District of New York issued a decision in August holding that several provisions of the Department of Labor’s final rule interpreting the Families First Coronavirus Response Act are invalid. 

As explained previously, the FFCRA provides eligible workers of covered employers with Emergency Paid Sick Leave and Emergency Family and Medical Leave for various reasons related to the COVID-19 pandemic. 

Calling into question the DOL’s interpretation of these laws, the court found that the final rule’s (1) “Work Availability” requirement, (2) definition of “Health Care Provider” for purposes of determining who may be excluded from eligibility, (3) employer consent for intermittent leave requirement, and (4) documentation requirements — to the extent that they were a precondition to leave entitlement — were invalid. 

Also read: Leave management should be as simple as submit, approve and hit the beach

On Sept. 11, the DOL announced changes to its final rule in light of the decision, effective Sept. 16. The following is an overview of the changes to the Final Rule.

The “Work Availability” Requirement 

Under both the EPSL and EFML provisions of the FFCRA, eligible employees of covered employers are entitled to paid leave if they are “unable to work (or telework) due to a need for leave” for various COVID-19 related reasons. In implementing these provisions, however, the DOL has generally excluded from eligibility those employees whose employers do not have work for them.  

While the court determined that the language of the FFCRA itself did not allow this, the DOL disagreed, and expanded and clarified its position in the revised Final Rule. Among its reasons for maintaining its position, the DOL explained that removing the work-availability requirement would not serve the FFCRA’s purpose of discouraging employees who may be infected with COVID-19 from going to work (if there is no work to go to, an infected employee would not need leave). It could also lead to perverse results in that furloughed employees with a qualifying reason (who were not working) could be paid FFCRA benefits while their colleagues without a qualifying reason (who also were not working) would not. 

The DOL noted that EPSL and EFML are forms of “leave” and that employees who had no work to perform — i.e., were on furlough — do not require “leave,” as that word is commonly understood. 

Noting the FFCRA’s anti-retaliation provisions, the DOL emphasized that employers may not make work unavailable in an effort to deny leave. The DOL also pointed out that other COVID-19 relief measures — including the Paycheck Protection Program and expanded unemployment provisions of the Coronavirus Relief, Aid, and Economic Security Act — more appropriately address the needs of employees for whom no work is available. To address specific failings noted by the court, the DOL clarified that “work availability” is a requirement for all forms of leave under the FFCRA.

Also read: Time off policies promote convenience while enhancing engagement

The Definition of ‘Health Care Provider’

Under the FFCRA, employers may exclude from EPSL and EFML eligibility “health care providers” and/or “emergency responders,” the DOL definitions of which were expansive. While the definition of “emergency responders” was not addressed in its decision, the court held that the FFCRA’s unambiguous terms did not allow for the broad definition of “health care provider.” 

In light of the decision, the DOL has revised the definition of “health care provider” to match the definition in the FMLA, and include other employees who provide diagnostic services, treatment services, or other services that are integrated with and necessary to the provision of patient care. The DOL has updated its answer to Q&A #56, clarifying that “health care providers” who may be excluded by their employer from FFCRA eligibility include: 

  1. “Anyone who is a licensed doctor of medicine, nurse practitioner, or other health care provider permitted to issue a certification for purposes of the FMLA.” 
  2. “Any other person who is employed to provide diagnostic services, preventive services, treatment services, or other services that are integrated with and necessary to the provision of patient care and, if not provided, would adversely impact patient care.” 
  3. Employees who do not provide direct heath care services to a patient but “are otherwise integrated into and necessary to the provision those services — for example, a laboratory technician who processes medical test results to aid in the diagnosis and treatment of a health condition — are health care providers.”

This second group includes nurses, nurse assistants, and medical technicians.” It also includes “employees who directly assist or are supervised by a direct provider of diagnostic, preventive, treatment, or other patient care services.” 

The Q&A further clarifies that a person is not a health care provider merely because their employer provides health care services — i.e., IT professionals, building maintenance staff, cooks, or food service workers. 

Notably, the revised “health care provider” definition no longer permits the highest official of a state (i.e., the governor) to expand the definition to include any individual they determine is a health care provider necessary for that state. 

The definition of “emergency responders” — including the highest official’s ability to expand it — has not changed.  

Provisions Relating to Intermittent Leave

The DOL’s final rule allows employees to take EPSL and EFML intermittently “only if the Employer and Employee agree,” and even then, only under certain circumstances — i.e., when the employee’s use of intermittent leave will not risk the employee transmitting the virus to others. While the court recognized that the final rule’s restrictions on when an employee may use leave intermittently are consistent with Congress’s public health objectives, it rejected the blanket requirement of employer consent. The DOL disagreed, however, and reaffirmed its position that employer approval is needed to take intermittent FFCRA leave. 

While the FFCRA did not expressly permit or prohibit intermittent leave (in contrast to the FMLA, which expressly authorizes employees to take leave intermittently, but only under certain circumstances), the DOL reasoned that the employer-approval condition is consistent with the longstanding FMLA principle that intermittent leave, where foreseeable, should avoid “unduly disrupting the employer’s operations,” particularly when it is not medically necessary (e.g., bonding leave). 

Notably, the DOL clarified that the employer-approval condition would not apply to employees who take FFCRA leave in full-day increments to care for their children whose schools are operating on an alternate day (or other hybrid-attendance) basis, because such leave would not be intermittent. In an alternate day or hybrid-attendance schedule, the school is physically closed with respect to certain students on particular days as determined by the school, not the employee. For the purposes of FFCRA, each day of school closure constitutes a separate reason for FFCRA leave that ends when the school opens the next day, and thus intermittent leave is not needed because the school literally closes and opens repeatedly. 

This is distinguished from a scenario where the school is closed for some period, and the employee wishes to take leave only for certain portions of that period for reasons other than the school’s in-person instruction schedule (in which case the use of leave would be intermittent and would require employer approval).

The Documentation Requirements 

The DOL’s final rule required that employees submit documentation to their employer prior to taking leave. The text of the FFCRA, however, requires only that employees give notice “as is practicable” for foreseeable EFML, and that they follow reasonable notice procedures for EPSL after the first workday or portion thereof that they receive paid sick leave.  

Recognizing these inconsistencies, the court held that the documentation requirements, to the extent they are a precondition to leave, are invalid. The DOL agreed with the court, and has thus revised the final rule to clarify that the documentation need not be given “prior to” taking EPSL or EFML. Thus, employers may require an employee to furnish as soon as practicable the required information and/or documentation discussed here.

In light of the foregoing, employers of health care providers in particular should familiarize themselves with the revised definition in order to ensure accuracy in determining which of its employees may be excluded from eligibility for EPSL and EFML. Employers who have relied on the previous “health care provider” definition to exclude employees from eligibility may wish to contact their attorney with questions about the revised definition and/or its impact on excluding such employees from FFCRA entitlements going forward. 

Additionally, to the extent employers were requiring documentation to support a request for EPSL and EFML prior to the leave, such processes must be revised to allow employees to provide such documentation “as soon as practicable.” 

Employers may continue to deny EPSL and EFML if there is no work available for the employee, and may continue requiring approval for use of EPSL and EFML on an intermittent basis, pursuant to the requirements of the revised final rule (and only if such intermittent use is for a permissible qualifying reason).

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DOL proposes rules to ease employer classification of workers as independent contractors

employment law, labor law, overtime records

The Department of Labor announced Sept. 22 a proposed rule amending its regulations on how to determine whether a worker is an employee covered by the Fair Labor Standards Act or an independent contractor not covered by the FLSA. This proposed rule is significant because the FLSA lacks clear guidance on these important definitions, which has left employers struggling, scrambling, and risk-taking to properly classify workers for purposes of paying overtime and other wage/hour obligations.

In this rulemaking, the DOL proposes to:

  • Adopt an “economic reality” test to determine a worker’s status as an FLSA employee or an independent contractor. The test considers whether a worker is in business for themselves (independent contractor) or is economically dependent on a putative employer for work (employee)
  • Identify and explain two “core factors”: the nature and degree of the worker’s control over the work; and the worker’s opportunity for profit or loss based on initiative and/or investment. These factors help determine the economic realities if a worker is economically dependent on someone else’s business or is in business for themselves; and
  • Identify three other factors that may serve as additional guideposts in the analysis: the amount of skill required for the work; the degree of permanence of the working relationship between the worker and the potential employer; and whether the work is part of an integrated unit of production.
You can download the entire proposed rule here, and it is open for public comment for 30 days.
As explained by Wage and Hour Division Administrator Cheryl Stanton, “The rule we proposed today continues our work to simplify the compliance landscape for businesses and to improve conditions for workers. The department believes that streamlining and clarifying the test to identify independent contractors will reduce worker misclassification, reduce litigation, increase efficiency, and increase job satisfaction and flexibility.”
I could not agree more. These business-friendly rules would be a significant benefit to employers seeking guidance on a crucial issue that continues to be the focus on costly class action litigation nationwide.
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Must you accommodate an employee with a high-risk family member?

ADA, coronavirus, acommodate

One of the questions I have received most from clients during this pandemic comes in some variation of the following: “An employee [does not want to come into work/wants to work from home/wants a leave of absence] because s/he lives with someone who is at high risk for coronavirus complications. What do we do?”

In other words, must you accommodate an employee for the employee’s close family member’s disability?

According to the EEOC, the answer is, “No.”

Is an employee entitled to an accommodation under the ADA in order to avoid exposing a family member who is at higher risk of severe illness from COVID-19 due to an underlying medical condition?

No. Although the ADA prohibits discrimination based on association with an individual with a disability, that protection is limited to disparate treatment or harassment. The ADA does not require that an employer accommodate an employee without a disability based on the disability-related needs of a family member or other person with whom she is associated.

For example, an employee without a disability is not entitled under the ADA to telework as an accommodation in order to protect a family member with a disability from potential COVID-19 exposure.

According to me, however, the answer is, “It depends” (on how you’ve historically treated similar requests by similarly situated employees).
The ADA not only protects employees with disabilities, but it also protects employees associated with individuals with disabilities. There is, however, one critical difference between these two types of protections. The former imposes on employers an obligation to offer reasonable accommodations, while the latter does not. This difference, however, does not mean that employers in all cases can deny accommodations to employees associated with individuals with disabilities.
If an employer has a history of accommodating employees similarly situated to an employee requesting an accommodation for an employee associated with someone at risk for coronavirus complications, the employer would be open to claim of disparate treatment by denying the employee’s accommodation request. Thus, an employer must scrutinize its decision to deny an accommodation request for an employee’s family member against similar requests by other similarly situated employees to avoid a claim of disparate treatment.
Of course, the ADA is a floor and not a ceiling. An employer is always free to accommodate any employee’s request for any reason. As the EEOC points out, “[A]n employer is free to provide such flexibilities if it chooses to do so.” Further, during the pandemic, the DOL “encourages employers and employees to collaborate to achieve flexibility and meet mutual needs.”
Moreover, there are myriad business reasons why an employer might choose to grant an accommodation in this case.
  1. It’s the ethically or morally correct thing to do.
  2. It will help you to retain a quality employee.
  3. Granting the accommodation will create goodwill, strengthening the employee’s loyalty to your company.
  4. You will avoid the potential for bad press or negative social media if you deny the request, or worse, fire an employee seeking an accommodation under these circumstances.
For these reasons, I generally favor granting the accommodation. Unless there is a legitimate and overriding business reason to deny an accommodation request to an employee who, during the COVID-19 pandemic, seeks remote work or a leave of absence because he or she does not want to endanger a high-risk family member, grant the request. It’s the right thing to do, and, depending on the circumstances, it might also be the legal thing to do.
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Using software to simplify payroll and overtime

payroll, software

Scheduling employees is difficult. Creating a schedule that factors in overtime can make the task even more time consuming.  

For companies that run in shifts or have round-the-clock operations, overtime is often a necessity. Poorly managed overtime can result in unnecessary cost overruns, cause mistakes on the production line and result in fatigue-related accidents.

Don’t work overtime to figure out your employees’ overtime. There are digital solutions that can simplify scheduling, address overtime requests and streamline the payroll process. Utilizing technology to develop a sensible overtime policy is essential to streamline payroll and will result in a safer, more productive workforce.

Why institute an overtime policy?

According to the Department of Labor, employees covered by the Fair Labor Standards Act must receive overtime pay for hours worked in excess of 40 in a workweek of at least one and one-half times their regular rates of pay. An effective overtime policy helps employers sort through daily and weekly overtime calculations to remain compliant with state and federal regulations.

Balancing Productivity

Scheduling overtime is often done to meet increased deadlines. Scheduling with a hair-on-fire approach — a practice followed by way too many employers — doesn’t necessarily equal optimal productivity.

Inefficient shift schedules lead to excessive and ineffective overtime levels. Many operations with fluctuating work demands have outdated scheduling systems that leave some employees idle and others too busy. Scheduling solutions can solve that headache.

Consider how many employees are needed to work overtime without affecting your team’s mental and physical health. Evenly rotating overtime schedules also can cut the animosity between employees and encourage a more supportive environment.

How technology helps

Technology plays a huge role today in helping organizations manage and reduce overtime expenses and meeting rigorous compliance standards. If you’re still using manual timesheets, it’s time to upgrade to an automated timekeeping system.

Automating overtime management provides streamlined processing, an impartial implementation of policies, fewer errors and more accurate record keeping. Time keeping and employee scheduling software significantly reduces the workload for supervisors while balancing employee requests and providing significant savings with the elimination of unneeded overtime.

Many organizations already have access to all the data they need to predict overtime costs in their payroll and time and attendance software. However, they don’t utilize it to its full effectiveness and wait until the end of a pay period to begin a deep-dive analysis into employee hours.

Instead, be proactive! Incorporate real-time analytics to track hours as the week unfolds to help identify employees who are on track to work overtime and allow for changes in staffing to minimize or eliminate these situations. Extract the data and examine it in a meaningful, practical way.

Perhaps most importantly, your compensation data can help avoid costly compliance violations, overtime lawsuits and steep fines.

Delicate balance between work and life

Resources are thin. Too much overtime — or not enough overtime — can cause stress, fatigue and burnout. Consider your employees’ health, your workplace culture and your business’ bottom line when scheduling overtime.

Workforce.com’s software simplifies operations and untangles complex overtime regulations. It also gives the entire organization the confidence that employees will be paid correctly.

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How do parents return to work without available child care?

Samsung service, child care, parent

Child care is the issue that has gotten the least attention in discussions about employees returning to work.

As states begin to slowly reopen and return employees to work, working parents are left wondering who will care for their children if schools, day cares and camps are closed.

The Families First Coronavirus Response Act provides working parents with some relief with its 12 weeks of paid child care-related leave. But that law has limits.
  1. It does not apply to businesses with 500 or more employees, and businesses with less than 50 employees can exempt themselves from the childcare-related leave provisions.
  2. It limits an employee’s leave allotment to 12 weeks, meaning that if an employee started taking childcare-related paid leave when the FFCRA took effect on April 1, he or she will exhaust their paid leave on June 24.
  3. It does not apply if there is anyone else available to care for an employee’s child(ren) during the employee’s working time.

And the FFCRA does not account for parents who are stretched the point of exhaustion, working their full workdays remotely, and then working another full workday managing child care-related responsibilities. Consider the following hypothetical from the New York Law Journal.

Maya is an investment banker in New York City and typically works a 10-hour day. Maya has a nanny care for her infant daughter while she is at the office. During this pandemic, Maya is forced to work at home and her nanny is unable to help. Maya now has to handle a 10-hour/day job using less-than-ideal remote access technology—her remote desktop does not operate as smoothly as her office computer; she has one screen on her home computer as opposed to three in her office; she does not have direct access to her assistant or her other staff; she does not have the full panoply of office supplies and other corporate-level printing and copying, etc. With all these hindrances, Maya must work 12 hours to accomplish the same work she previously did in 10. On top of that, she must care for her infant daughter all day, which conservatively involves approximately eight hours of direct, hands-on attention. For Maya to cover her responsibilities (minus any time for even a short break), she must work a 20-hour day. And, she must do this every day, indefinitely, until the circumstances of this pandemic change.

Or consider, for example, Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine, who on May 5 said that some K-12 schools are considering starting the 2020–21 school year on a split schedule. Half of a school’s students would attend in-person classes on Mondays and Tuesday, and the other half of Thursdays and Fridays. Students would distance learn on the days they aren’t in school in person.

This plan is great for helping schools manage social distance, but it’s terrible for working parents who are left scratching their heads figuring out who will help manage distance learning and otherwise watch their children on the days they aren’t in school, and who will provide child care after school.

What’s an employer to do?

1. Don’t discriminate. Family responsibility discrimination remains unlawful under Title VII. While federal law does not expressly include “family responsibility” as a protected class, the EEOC has long held that Title VII’s prohibits discrimination against parents as parents if you are treating some more favorably than others (e.g., dads better than moms, or men better than moms). There are also, a few states that expressly prohibit parental discrimination. If, for example, you have to make decisions about layoffs, you should be considering whether working parents are disproportionately included.

2. Consider accommodations to aid working parents. Work from home is already an accommodation, but there are others that could help here. Modified work schedules (which the Department of Labor favors in its FFCRA guidance), designated breaks, and the provision of additional work supplies such as laptops and printers could all ease the burden on parents working from home. Our goal here should be helping employees figure out solutions to get their job done, not harming employees (and the business) by erecting barriers that prevent it.
3. Finally, and most importantly, flexibility is key. Ohio’s Stay Safe Order mandates that manufacturers, distributors, construction companies, and offices allow employees to “work from home whenever possible.” If employees can work remotely, let them work remotely. Flexibility, understanding, and compassion is the best answer I can offer for the foreseeable future.
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A coronavirus DOL settlement of a Families First Coronavirus Response Act case

employment law, labor law, overtime records

It did not take long for the Department of Labor to announce its first-ever settlement of a claimed violation of the Families First Coronavirus Response Act.

The DOL’s press release provides the details:

Bear Creek Electrical – an electrical company based in Tucson, Arizona – will pay one employee $1,600 for refusing to provide him sick leave under the newly passed Emergency Paid Sick Leave Act after health care providers ordered him to self-quarantine with potential coronavirus symptoms.
WHD investigators found that Bear Creek Electrical failed to pay the employee for what qualified as paid sick leave covering the hours he spent at home after the company received documentation of his doctor’s instructions to self-quarantine. The employer will pay the employee’s full wages of $20 an hour for 80 hours of leave.… Bear Creek Electrical also agreed to future compliance with the FFCRA, which went into effect on April 1, 2020.
“This case should serve as a signal to others that the U.S. Department of Labor is working to protect employee rights during the coronavirus pandemic,” said Wage and Hour District Director Eric Murray in Phoenix, Arizona.

You’ve been warned. If you are not providing your employees the paid coronavirus leave to which they are entitled, the DOL is watching.