Fair Labor Standards Act

**Content updated on March 26, 2020 to provide a link to the U.S. Department of Labor model poster released on March 25, 2020 and to update the new effective date of the FFCRA.**

In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, employers now have new emergency paid leave obligations for employees in Colorado and across the United States.

On March 18, 2020, a new federal law, the Families First Coronavirus Response Act, was enacted to provide paid sick leave and family leave to employees in the U.S. impacted by COVID-19.  Last week, the Colorado Department of Labor and Employment adopted emergency rules, the Colorado Health Emergency Leave with Pay Rules, to provide paid sick leave for employees in specific industries in Colorado.

A summary of the new federal law and the Colorado emergency rules is outlined below:
Continue Reading COVID-19 Emergency Paid Sick and Family Leave Laws

Breaking news text with world and hand cursorOn Tuesday afternoon, a federal judge for the U.S. District Court in the Eastern District of Texas (Sherman Division) entered a preliminary injunction in State of Nevada et al. v. United States Department of Labor et al., Civil Action No. 4:16-CV-00731, blocking the U.S. Department of Labor’s Final Rule, which would have increased the minimum salary for “white collar” exempt employees from $455 per week ($23,660 annually) to $921 per week ($47,892 annually) and created an automatic update mechanism to adjust the minimum salary level every three years. The Final Rule was to be effective on December 1, 2016.

Case Background

Earlier in 2016, Nevada and twenty (20) other U.S. states filed a lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Labor (“DOL”), the Wage and Hour Division of the DOL, and their agents, challenging the legality of the DOL’s authority to enact the Final Rule. On October 12, 2016, the States filed an Emergency Motion for a Preliminary Injunction. Amicus briefs were filed and a preliminary injunction hearing was held last week on November 16, 2016.Continue Reading BREAKING NEWS: Nationwide Injunction Blocks the U.S. DOL’s Final Rule That Nearly Doubled the Minimum Salary for Exempt “White Collar” Employees

iStock_000018764690_ExtraSmall.jpgAs of January 1, 2013, Colorado’s minimum wage increased from $7.64 per hour to $7.78 per hour, with tipped employee’s minimum wage increasing from $4.62 per hour to $4.76 per hour. The Colorado Division of Labor adopted Colorado Minimum Wage Order Number 29 (PDF) to reflect the new state minimum wage.  The Minimum Wage

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On May 9, 2011, the U.S. Department of Labor issued a news release announcing the launch of its first application for smartphones – a timesheet to help employees independently track the hours they work and determine the wages they are owed.  The App, called “DOL – Timesheet,” is available to download for free

SnowDay.jpgI have received quite a few requests for inclement weather policies of late, and since the topic of “snow days” frequently arises this time of year, I wanted to provide some (hopefully) useful information for employers.  The question of whether an employer is obligated to pay employees for “snow days” depends largely on two questions:

  1. Is the

Birthday.jpgIn 1938, during the Great Depression, Congress enacted the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) to:

“aid the unprotected, unorganized, and lowest paid of the nation’s working population; that is those employees who lacked sufficient bargaining power to secure for themselves a minimum subsistence wage.”

At that time, we had an industrial workforce and most jobs