Tennessee Employment Lawyer Blog

In Tennessee and all over the United States, employees working in any business or position deserve overtime rights as well as minimum wage rights. Unfortunately, however, in some positions workers are not given these rights or protections. However, the White House and the federal government are working to change these rules. If you or someone you work with feel that you do not get the overtime and minimum wage rights you deserve or want to know how these changes may affect you, then you should talk to a Tennessee employment overtime and minimum wage lawyer right away. They will work with you to make sure you get the employment rights and compensation that you deserve.

The White House has announced a proposed rule to mend the Supreme Court’s decision in Coke by extending minimum wage and overtime protections to home health care workers who are employed by third party agencies. Before this decision, Coke, impacted hard working and low paid employees all across the country. Many home healthcare workers, who provide care for the elderly and disabled, were extremely underpaid for the work that they do because of a Fair Labor Standards Act exemption and Coke made this worse by extending this exemption to third party agencies. Coke was a harsh precedent because it crushed the Fair Labor Standards Act narrow construction of the exemption rule and it made a sub-class of low wage employees who could have suffered from wage abuse by third party agencies. The White House’s proposal to mend Coke’s decision is a great decision for these employees and other employees in similar situations all across the country.

Continue reading "White House Proposed Rule for Overtime and Minimum Wage Protections for Home Care Workers" »

In Tennessee and all across the country, employees are entitled to the proper wage amounts for their specific job. Unfortunately, many companies and businesses find ways around these wage requirements by misclassifying their employees or keeping improper records of payment. If you or someone you work with feels that your rights to a certain wage have been violated, then you should speak with a Tennessee employment lawyer as soon as possible. They will hear your case and work with you to make sure you get the compensation you are entitled to by law.

According to this case, The U.S. Department of Labor stated on December 14th, 2011, that “35 franchised hotels and motels, including eleven in Middle Tennessee, violated minimum wage, overtime and other labor laws during the fiscal year ended Sept. 30.” The Department also said that those businesses received fines and they owed $14,552 and the agency was able to recover more than $173,000 in wages which were owed to two hundred and eighty-three employees. These business violations included charging employees excessive room and board if they also lived on the property and paying housekeepers by the number of rooms they cleaned. These violations led to these employees receiving less than $7.25 minimum wage. They also only paid employees regular pay or “straight” pay for all the hours they worked, including overtime, and failed to pay for hours that temporary employees worked. Some of the hotels and motels also misclassified their employees as independent contractors which denied them their wage rights according to federal law.

These citations were part of a multi-year enforcement initiative which focused on Tennessee’s hotel and motel industry during which the U.S. Department of Labor found, “found widespread noncompliance with the minimum wage, overtime and record-keeping provisions of the Fair Labor Standards Act.” Ten hotels and motels in Nashville were cited and also one in Smyrna.

Continue reading "Eleven Tennessee Hotels Receive Fines for Wage Violations " »

Some companies and businesses find ways around paying their employees the wages they deserve by paying their employees and then not keeping records of it or failing to pay them overtime pay. According to a recent case, The U.S. Labor Department stated that more than $1 million in back wages has been recovered for two hundred and ninety-five gas station workers after they investigated and found that the gas stations were not compliant with the regulations of the Fair Labor Standards Act, specifically minimum wage and overtime pay requirements. The Fair Labor Standards Act district director of the federal Department of Labor’s Wage and Hour Division stated that only twenty-five percent of the gas stations were compliant with the Fair Labor Standards Act.

The investigation by the U.S. Labor Department discovered violations of the Fair Labor Standards Act such as paying below the federal minimum wage of 7.25 an hour and not receiving time and half rates of pay when working more than forty hours in a single workweek. Finally, they also discovered that some employees were being paid “off the books”.

The executive director for the Gasoline C-Store Automotive Association stated that gas station employers are not trying to cheat their workers out of proper paid but that they just need lessons in correct bookkeeping according to federal law. In this case, the employees as a result of its investigation was able to recover a total of $ 1,014,895 for workers during the 2011 fiscal year.

Continue reading "Gas Station Workers to Get Back Wages after Being Cheated out of Proper Pay " »

According to this lawsuit, two men who worked on the movie “Black Swan” are challenging the industry’s accepted unpaid internship policy by claiming that Fox Searchlight Pictures, the production company for the movie, had their interns do basic work that should have been done by paid employees and they also claim that the company did not provide them with any type of educational experience that labor rules require in order to exempt employers from paying their interns.

The lawsuit also states that, “In misclassifying many of its workers as unpaid interns, Fox Searchlight has denied them the benefits that the law affords to employees.” One of the plaintiffs’s Alex Footman, worked on “Black Swain” from October 2009 until February 2010 and claims his responsibilities included preparing coffee for the office, making sure the coffee pot was full, taking and handing out lunch orders to the production staff, cleaning the office and taking out the trash. The other plaintiff, Eric Glatt, claimed he prepared documents for purchase orders and petty cash, traveled to the set to get signatures on documents, and created spreadsheets to track missing information in an employee’s file.

The lawsuit is seeking class action for what the plaintiffs claim were more than one hundred unpaid interns on various Fox Searchlight Productions. The lawsuit is also seeking back pay under federal and state minimum wage laws and seeking an injunction barring Fox Searchlight from improperly using unpaid interns. Russell Nelson, a Fox Searchlight spokesman, said, “We just learned of this litigation and have not had a chance to review it so we cannot make any comment at this time.”

Continue reading "Unpaid Interns for “Black Swan” Movie File Lawsuit against Studio over Minimum Wage and Overtime Pay " »

In Tennessee and all across the country, when employees go to work each day and work hard, they expect to get paid for the hours they work and expect that their workplace will follow federal laws and guidelines. However, sometimes businesses find ways around paying their employees for the hours they work and may not even follow federal laws considering the hours in which minors are allowed to work. If you or someone you know has worked overtime hours and failed to receive overtime pay, then you should talk to a Tennessee labor overtime lawyer right away. They will hear your case and make sure you get the compensation you are entitled to by law.

In this case, a restaurant chain known as This is It! BBQ and Seafood has been ordered by the federal government to provide $104,000 in back pay to two hundred and thirty of its workers at five locations and was fined $1,900 for allowing minors to work later than allowed by federal law. This action was taken after the U.S. Department of Labor’s Wage and Hour Division nvestigated the chain restaurant and discovered violations of minimum wage, overtime pay, and record keeping provisions of Fair Labor Standards Act. The investigation found that the company improperly classified employees as being exempt from the Fair Labor Standards Act and failed to pay them time and a half for hours worked over forty in one work week.

The investigators determined that the employees were not paid minimum wage because the company deducted uniform expenses and lunch breaks. They also discovered that workers who were younger than sixteen were being permitted to work later than 9 p.m. between June 1st and Labor Day and later than 7 p.m. at other times of the year violating federal restrictions for younger workers. Finally, the investigation discovered that the company also failed to keep accurate records of tips earned and hours worked violating the Fair Labor Standards Act record-keeping regulations.

Owner Shelly Anthony did not comment but the company agreed to maintain future compliance with the Fair Labor Standards Act by keeping accurate records and paying full and proper wages for all hours worked.

Continue reading "Restaurant Fined and Ordered to Pay $104,000 in Back Wages " »

Many of us across the country and even right here in Tennessee hear about cases where workers are unfairly treated or paid very little for the hours they are expected to work. Many of us may shake our heads or feel sad for these people, but most of us may not realize how often it still happens each and every day and that it happens everywhere to just about every type of worker, including those who work at some of the country’s most famous tourist attractions. If you or someone you love believes your minimum wage rights have not been upheld, it is important that you speak with a Tennessee minimum wage lawyer right away. They will help make sure you are fairly compensated for the time you put in at work.

In this case, people all over the world know of Chinatown in San Francisco because of their cultural aspects and amazing food and the authentic items that you can purchase, but many people do not realize how little food workers get pay here and how they are treated for the work that they do. The San Francisco Department of Public Health along with UC Berkeley and UCSF found in a study that, half of the food workers do not even receive the $minimum wage. To make matters even worse, forty percent of them work overtime but seventy-six percent do not get paid overtime and sixty-four percent of the workers receive no training on the job, which has resulted in more injuries.

Former restaurant worker, Li Shuang Li stated that, “She did not get minimum wage. There were no health care benefits, no health insurance at all. And she worked very long days with no breaks”.

The Chinese Progressive Association which helped started the effort also commented that many of the restaurant workers are mistreated. In order to make things better, supporters of the study are going to invest more into Chinatown with stronger enforcement of labor, health and safety laws and a low wage workers’ bill of rights.

Continue reading "Food Workers in Chinatown Receive Little Pay" »

Tennessee Employment Law Blog explores recent wage and hour lawsuits in this entry to inform Tennessee hourly wage workers about common means employers use to underpay employees.

Times are tough. Tennessee businesses and employers across the nation are meeting tough times with layoffs and cutting costs. But when employees’ pay is illegally cut, some employees have chosen to get tough back and are able to recover unpaid wages or unpaid overtime by working with employment lawyers on wage and hour lawsuits.

Wage employees in Pennsylvania are taking on Aramark Corp., the Philadelphia-based food-service giant, that allegedly cheated its workers out of overtime pay and the lunches and breaks required by federal workplace law under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA). This week several Aramark wage workers filed a summons in Philadelphia Common Pleas Court in what may become a class-action lawsuit. Their attorney estimates damages of up to $2M for the 3,000 workers employed to provide service Aramarak’s stadiums

Previously in April of last year, Aramark settled, without admitting wrongdoing, a similar case involving 419 workers. The present filing entered as evidence a sample pay stub that demonstrates, according the plaintiff’s attorney, the company’s deliberate design to make it difficult for workers to determine their amount of hours worked.

Some allegations center on the unpaid overtime for when an employee worked in two separate locations for Aramark. Additionally, 30 minutes was automatically deducted from hours worked, even though half-hour lunches were not always available to employees. For some workers, not receiving payment for these automatically deducted 30-minute lunches meant they were being paid less than minimum wage.

Continue reading "Illegal Wage & Hour Pay Practices Cause of Numerous Lawsuits" »

A study released earlier this week looking into Tennessee construction worker wages found that one in five construction workers was either misclassified as an independent contractor or paid under the table since 2006. The study was presented to Tennessee committee on House Consumer and Employee Affairs this Wednesday.

The study was based on state and federal agency data and conducted by professors at Middle Tennessee State University and Tennessee Tech. It concluded that 38,680 Tennessee workers were misclassified or paid under the table, which impacted the state by a nearly $15M loss in unemployment taxes and $92M to workers' compensation premiums. According to the study, those employers who don’t pay appropriate wages and associated employment costs poison the well for those honest employers who pay their premiums and follow federal and Tennessee employment law.

Continue reading "Prevailing Wage News
20% of TN Construction Workers Underpaid" »

As Tennessee Law Blog foresaw in the early months of last year in Tennessee Wage and Hour Cases on the Rise, wage-and-hour lawsuits have continued to explode across the county. In one report by a national employment law firm, non-government wage and hour settlements in 2009 grew 44% over 2008’s lawsuits.

Settlements for wage and hour lawsuits also increased in 2009. For those filed in federal court under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), lawsuit settlement amounts rose from $253 million in 2008 to $364 million in 2009 for the top 10 wage and hour cases of those years. The greatest growth in wage and hour lawsuits was along the coasts – California, Washington New Jersey, New York, Massachusetts – though the trend was upward in other states as well.

Continue reading "Wage and Hour Lawsuits Increase Nationwide" »

A new class (or collective) action has been filed in Tennessee against a hospital for automatically deducting a lunch break from workers schedules. Apparently, the payroll system would deduct a specific period of time for lunch from the employee's pay even when the employee did not take lunch. This automatic payroll deduction would effect both regular pay and overtime received by employees.

In the age of automated systems and computers it is tempting and easy for employers to set up standard clock in and out procedures. Unfortunately, these systems do not always match reality. Also, it seems that it is usually the employer that gets the benefit and the employee that gets short changed on their paycheck.

Continue reading "Tennessee Class action filed for automatic lunch deductions" »

The Memphis News began a series today titled Tipping a Tricky Business that covers many of the wage and hour legal issues facing tipped wage employees, especially when they are required to share their tips.

Written by Fredric Koeppel, this first installment covers a variety of tip-related subjects that have appeared in previous Tennessee Workplace Law Blog, such as tip pooling and illegal paycheck/tip deductions.

If you are a tipped employee, tips are the bulk of your paycheck. A tipped employee with 10 years with the company often receives the same on his or her paycheck as someone who just started. As Koeppel’s piece points out, “Some diners tip well and some don’t[…] Some tip on the amount before taxes and some on the after-tax total.” Furthermore, some restaurants charge their wait staff for tips paid on a credit card as a means of recovering the charges the restaurant must pay for credit card transactions.

Continue reading "Tennessee Minimum Wage and Tipping Practices Subject of New Series of Articles" »

A $2.6-million lawsuit was filed in Los Angeles Superior Court on Tuesday alleging a California car wash paid its employees less than minimum wage and denied overtime. The lawsuit was filed by the state’s attorney general against the Auto Spa Express, its owner, and its present incorporation as Sunset Car Wash.

This CA lawsuit is reminiscent of our reportage earlier this year in Unpaid Wages and Unrecorded Hours Subject of Local Nashville, TN Car Wash Workers… blog.

Continue reading "Car Wash Overtime Lawsuit Seeks $630K in Back Wages" »

Current and former Massachusetts Wal-Mart employees will receive $40 million in unpaid wages from the world’s largest retailer, Wal-Mart Stores Inc. This class-action wage and hour lawsuit is the largest in the history of the Bay State.

The cause of the wage lawsuit, which appears pervasive in the company by the numerous wage and hour lawsuits settled last year in December (read the Tennessee Law Blog’s coverage of last year’s Wal-Mart wage settlement) was the company’s denial of rest and meal breaks, refusal to pay overtime, and the manipulation of time cards to lower employees’ pay.

As many as 87,500 employees will receive a payment of between $400 and $2,500, the average check being for $734. Any Wal-Mart or Sam’s Club employee paid wages between working in the period between August 1995 and December 2009 is entitled to payment.

Continue reading " $40M Returned to Hourly-Paid Wal-Mart Employees
in State’s Largest Wage and Hour Settlement" »

As I bring out my cold cut sandwich made from the remains of Thursday’s turkey and settle in at my home office computer to write today’s Tennessee Employment Lawyer blog, I can’t help but think about the recent Department of Labor lawsuit against West Liberty Foods and Henry’s Turkey Service, an Iowa company, being sued for underpaying their mentally handicapped workers.

Back in February, officers raided an old schoolhouse where 21 men known as “Henry Boys” had been living and working for 35 years for Henry’s Turkey Service cleaning and gutting turkeys. Last Wednesday, the Department of Labor filed suit against West Liberty Foods who contracted and allegedly oversaw operations of the processing plant. This would include the decision to pay these workers a wage of $65 a month regardless of hours worked, much less pay appropriate overtime.

The Department’s wage and hour lawsuit alleges, in addition to paying less than standard minimum wage and failing to pay overtime rates, that Henry’s Turkey Service additionally failed to accurate books. This failure to keep accurate books hit another business hard this week, this time a local restaurant chain in the Great Lakes region.

Continue reading "DOL’s Wage Lawsuits Recovering
Backpay for Wage Violations across U.S. " »

Las Vegas is a great city to visit, partly due to its heavy dependence on the service industry. Recently, though, some professions in its service industry that rely on tips (and whose employers count on those tips to exceed minimum wage in order to not pay regular minimum wages) have been making the news. Most noticeably, card dealers and adult dancers.

Earlier this year, Tennessee Law Blog reported on Vegas wage lawsuits filed by dealers against casinos for illegal tip pooling. (More information on tip pooling available on our Tennessee Employment pages.) Of recent invention, and one major cause of the tip pooling lawsuit, was the casinos’ policy of having dealers’ tips pooled and, allegedly, illegally distributed to pay non-tipped floor supervisors. Like many tip pooling cases employment lawyers see, this was allegedly done to boost pay to the supervisors at the expense of those dealers who legally qualify as tipped employees.

Continue reading "Vegas, Vegas, Vegas,
(And the Vulnerability of Tipped Employees for Minimum Wage Underpayment in the Silver State)" »

The Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) was established to protect all employees. The minimum wage provisions of the FLSA apply to employees that receive tips as a part of their income as well as those who do not. Employees who receive tips as part of their income, like waiters and waitresses, bartenders, bell boys, and delivery people, are sometimes victims of employer practices that actually reduce the employees income below the minimum wage. When this happens, an employee does have a remedy under the law.

On top of the increasingly common problem where employees simply do not make enough in tips plus their lessened hourly rate to equal minimum wage, there are three other common areas where employers have encroached on the wages of tipped employees: tip pooling, tip retention and uniform costs.

Tip pooling is where the employer requires the employee to participate by pooling their tips in a group for a distribution across a pool of employees. Tipped employees cannot be required to participate in a program that must tip out to employees that are not common tip recipients, such as dishwashers or cooks. The rationale is that those employees are already above the minimum wage threshold and the tips are property of the person who receives the tip, not the employer.

Tip retention is an agreement wherein the employer retains any portion of the tips. Tips are immediately the property of the employee who receives them. As stated earlier, there can be pooling agreements, but the employer is not allowed as a participant of the pool.

Lastly, some employers will require, particularly during initial employment and training, their employees to purchase or rent uniforms. If the cost of the uniform, when balanced against the reduced wage plus tips, causes the actual hourly income to fall below minimum wage, the employer must make up the difference. Similarly, some positions require a training period where tips are not earned or are earned at a significantly reduced rate. If the employee does not earn the minimum wage, the employer must make up the difference.

If you feel that you have been a victim of any of these practices, the Higgins Firm represents employees in an effort to make things right. Contact our Tennessee Employment Law Office if you have questions.