When starting a new job, you are naturally eager to get to work. Your employer hands you a stack of new hire paperwork and you breeze through it because you just want to hit the ground running. Often included in this stack of new hire paperwork, however, is a document called an “arbitration agreement.” What …Read More

The Fair Labor Standards Act (“FLSA”), the federal law that sets forth the requirements for overtime pay, protects employees by requiring a company to pay a prevailing plaintiff his/her reasonable attorney’s fees and costs.  29 U.S.C. § 216 (b).   The purpose for this “fee shifting” is to protect workers who have small claims and to allow …Read More

Time and time again, we at the Shavitz Law Group get the same call from employees cheated out of their wages: “When I worked for so-and-so, I regularly worked over 40 hours per week but wasn’t paid any overtime wages because I was paid on a salary basis.  I didn’t know that I could still …Read More

Employers often try to control costs by establishing labor or payroll budgets which limit the amount of payroll that can be spent on staffing the workplace. For large companies with multiple locations, labor budgets are often set through corporate directives, and the managers at the locations have little or no input into deciding how much …Read More

Helpdesk employees are critical to all companies.  They fix computer issues and make sure that all systems work properly to allow the business to function.  Without Helpdesk employees, other employees would not be able to use critical programs, and businesses would suffer.  To keep business running, many Helpdesk employees work long hours and field calls …Read More

When it comes to drive time, the rules of the road are often unclear. For hourly and other non-exempt employees who drive as part of their jobs, it is important to know whether and when drive time must be paid. Generally, regular commuting from your home to your work site is not compensable, even if …Read More

Despite all the progress we’ve made to narrow the wage gap, women in the United States still typically earn only 85% of what their male counterparts earn.  Congress enacted the Equal Pay Act (“EPA”) in the hopes of remedying the situation.  Under the EPA, men and women must be paid equally where their jobs are “substantially …Read More

The United States Department of Labor has issued a Final Rule which will raise the minimum salary threshold applicable to the executive, administrative and professional exemptions.  The new rule will go into effect on January 1, 2020.  Currently, the salary threshold is $455.00 per week, or $23,660.00 per year.  Employees who meet the $455.00/week salary …Read More

Many retailers and service providers have reduced their footprint to make more use of small storefronts, kiosks, even mobile “carts” to sell their goods and services. Usually, just one employee – maybe two during peak hours – are working at these locations. Frequently, that one person is the “manager” and is classified as exempt, so …Read More

Servers and bartenders work hard to make sure their customers have a great meal and fun time.  For that great service, they are rewarded with tips from the grateful customers.  These restaurant employees rely on those tips as the primary source of their income. By law, management typically cannot take any portion of those tips. …Read More