Bloomberg BNA reported Friday evening that President Trump has nominated Cheryl Stanton of South Carolina as Administrator of the Wage Hour Division of the U.S. Department of Labor. Ms. Stanton is currently executive director of the S.C. Department of Employment and Workforce, which administers unemployment compensation for the state. She has been a shareholder with the management-side employment firm Ogletree Deakins twice, separated by a period in which she was the principal White House liaison to the U.S. Department of Labor, the National Labor Relations Board, and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission under former President George W. Bush. She is a 1994 graduate of Williams College, and a 1997 graduate of the University of Chicago School of Law. According to the Trump White House, she clerked for Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito when he was on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit.

Lots going on in the wage-hour area! As noted here, today the USDOL filed a motion to dismiss as moot its appeal of the preliminary injunction blocking the Obama-era overtime rule.

The state of Oregon is the first in the Union to have a statewide "scheduling law." The new law will take effect (for the most part) on July 1, 2018, and will apply to retail, hospitality, and food services employers with operations in Oregon, as long as they have at least 500 employees worldwide. Bob Ortbals, who has been following and covering municipal scheduling laws, has an ...

On August 11, Gov. Roy Cooper signed into law the North Carolina Employee Fair Classification Act. The portion of the legislation that deals with worker classifications will take effect December 31.

The legislation does not change existing definitions of “employee” and “independent contractor” under state law but creates an Employee Classification Section of the North ...

We officially entered the season of summer this week. What are the most common ways employers can get burned? I can think of four right off the bat.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qtbhrq8JyBw

(In the 1960s, melanoma was cool.)

Sexist air conditioning. It seems like a long time since we've read anything about this employment law "issue." The idea was that office air conditioning ...

And may it die quickly. The U.S. Department of Labor has taken formal regulatory action to rescind the Obama Administration's "Persuader Rule." The DOL has been enjoined from enforcing the rule since November 2016, but the latest action will presumably end it for good. Let's hope. David Phippen of our Washington DC Metro Office has the details in this Client Bulletin.

Mayor de Blasio ...

On November 23, 2016, we issued a Client Bulletin titled “Employers Can Breathe A Sigh of Relief Come December 1: Court strikes down overtime rule.”  But a new lawsuit in federal court in New Jersey puts a gulp in that sigh of relief.

Background

As previously reported, regulations that would have more than doubled the salary threshold for Administrative, Executive and ...

Trump DOL removes Obama DOL guidance on independent contractors, joint employment. On Wednesday, Secretary of Labor Alexander Acosta removed two Administrator's Interpretations on independent contractors and joint employment issued during the Obama Administration. Here is our Client Bulletin, which I wrote with Jim Coleman, co-chair of our Wage and Hour Practice Group. The ...

The Working Families Flexibility Act of 2017 passed the House this week, 229-197. I honestly do not understand why Democrats are opposed to this legislation. I discussed the details of the bill in this post in April. For those who are worried that workers will be deprived of their overtime pay, here are a few points to keep in mind:

1. The worker can always choose to take overtime pay instead of ...

Employers in St. Louis City must pay their employees a minimum wage of $10 an hour beginning tomorrow—Friday, May 5. The Mayor’s Office just announced that the injunction on the minimum wage ordinance has been lifted. Noncompliance with the ordinance subjects employers to prosecution in municipal court along with potentional revocation of business licenses and occupancy ...

Last week, I wrote about a study describing how certain timekeeping systems could create wage and hour liability through, among other things, making it easy to "cheat" and providing no transparency when changes are made. (Which makes it impossible to detect and correct errors.) Having addressed the "problem" last week, I wanted to talk this week about solutions.

But before I do ...