Employers Must Act Now!
The Fair Labor Standards Act is a federal statue regulating the payment of overtime and minimum wage. Recently, the FLSA has become a favorite of the plaintiffs’ bar, and the Department of Labor, bringing collective actions seeking overtime pay, alleging the misclassification of workers as salaried exempt, and minimum wage and overtime claims alleging employees are forced to work off the clock. These actions have given rise to claims for back pay, liquidated damages and attorney fees. Over a number of years, these claims – especially for companies with multiple employees -can and often add up to multi-million dollar exposures.
In 2015, the Obama Administration’s Department of Labor promulgated new regulations for the enforcement of the FLSA, with the express intent of expanding FLSA coverage to 5 million additional employees currently treated as salary exempt. The final rule is expected to be published in July 2016 and will be effective 60 days after publication.
The new rule is sure to increase collective actions brought by plaintiffs and audits by the DOL. Once the rule is final, employers will have only 60 days to comply with the complex regulations. Employers waiting until the rule is final to prepare to adjust their procedures will be hard pressed to comply in a timely fashion.
Take Immediate Action
To allow timely compliance with these new regulations, employers must review:
-FLSA compliance procedures,
-job descriptions, and
-classification of positions as exempt or non-exempt for overtime purposes.
Changing job classifications to comply with the new regulations is the perfect opportunity to make necessary corrections while reducing the risk of encouraging actions for back wages.
Carr Allison has years of experience in dealing with the FLSA and classification issues and can help you through this review process. We will review your FLSA compliance procedures, your classification of positions and your job descriptions. We can go beyond the paper review and interview managers in the field to ensure that all documentation reflects the actual practice in the field.
A thorough review of your FLSA compliance program will prepare you to meet the new regulations, position you to defend against audits and collective actions and help support a defense against allegations of willful violations of the FLSA.
You can’t afford to wait until the final rule is published.
