Several new wage and hour bills made it through various state legislatures during the second half of the year. Below is a wrap up of some new developments (including regulatory updates) from July 1st through December 31st. Click here to read our post on changes to state minimum wages.
The federal minimum wage remains unchanged at $7.25/hr. However, various states will either increase or decrease their state minimum wages come January 1, 2010, whereas other states have elected not to change their current rate.
States that are increasing their minimum wage
Alaska
$7.75/hr. Effective January 1, 2010 the minimum wage must be at least fifty cents more than the federal minimum wage. Alaska Statutes, §23.10.065.
Connecticut
$8.25/hr. Effective January 1, 2010, the Connecticut minimum wage will increase from $8.00/hr to $8.25/hr. General Statutes of Connecticut, §31-58.
Kansas
$7.25. Effective January 1, 2010, Kansas’s minimum wage increases from $2.65/hr to $7.25/hr. Kansas General Statutes § 44-1203.
The federal Department of Labor (DOL) recently announced its intent to revise the regulations governing the recordkeeping requirements imposed on employers by the Fair Labor Standards Act. Specifically, the DOL’s Wage and Hour Division intends to propose revised regulations that would require employers to disclose how many hours were worked in a pay period, how pay has been computed, what deductions are being made, and whether proper time and one-half overtime pay has been included for overtime hours worked for each pay period.
In Barbosa v. IMPCO Technologies, Inc., the California Court of Appeals for the Fourth District held that terminating an employee for exercising his statutory right to overtime wages out of a reasonable, good faith belief of entitlement to it, (notwithstanding the subsequent discovery that he was wrong), was contrary to California public policy.
In Christopher v. SmithKline Beecham,1 2009 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 108992 (D. Ariz. Nov. 20, 2009), a federal district court in Arizona held that pharmaceutical sales representatives (PSRs) were “outside salespeople” and therefore exempt from the overtime provisions of the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA).
Employers beware! This is the message emanating loud and clear from the Obama Administration's Department of Labor. Secretary of Labor Hilda Solis recently announced that the Department is dramatically increasing its enforcement of federal employment laws with an additional 250 new wage and hour investigators. This influx of new investigators boosts the departmental investigative staff by a full one third.
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