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noreply@dickinsonlaw.com Dickinson Mackaman Tyler Hagen P.C.
rsamson@dickinsonlaw.com Dickinson Mackaman Tyler Hagen P.C.

Latest from Wage & Hour Watch

Speaking at the Iowa Federation of Labor’s  annual convention in mid-August, 2019, AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka, told Democratic presidential candidates who have been working the state, “If you want our endorsement … show us that you’re unambiguously pro-worker and pro-union.” A few weeks earlier, on August 6, 2019, the International Brotherhood of Teamsters issued a press release announcing that the national presidential campaign staff of Sen. Cory Booker had chosen Teamsters Des Moines…
Dickinson Law is pleased to announce that Andrea Rastelli has joined the firm. Andrea is a recent Juris Doctor graduate of the University of Iowa College of Law and holds a B.A. in International Relations and Latin American Studies from Lafayette College in Easton, Pennsylvania. Her legal training includes serving as an intern at John Deere Financial and Comcast Corporate, and as an extern at ACT where collectively she gained experience on issues such as…
Dickinson Law is pleased to announce that 19 of the firms’ attorneys have been selected for inclusion in the 2020 Edition of The Best Lawyers in America®.  Attorney F. Richard Lyford was also recognized by Best Lawyers® as the Litigation – Real Estate  “Lawyer of the Year” in Des Moines. Since it was first published in 1983, Best Lawyers has become universally regarded as the definitive guide to legal excellence and is the oldest and…
On July 22, 2019, DOL’s Wage and Hour Division issued an opinion letter (FLSA2019-10) on whether an employee’s time spent in a truck’s sleeper berth is compensable time under the Fair Labor Standards Act. This guidance reversed a position WHD has held since 1964, and appears to be an attempt by DOL to reduce the impact of recent FLSA class action lawsuits filed by truck drivers over this issue. From 1964 to the present, WHD…
Under the Fair Labor Standards Act’s tip credit rules, employers can pay a base hourly wage as low as $2.13/hour to employees who customarily and regularly receive at least $30/month in tips directly from customers.  (Iowa law requires a minimum base hourly wage of $4.35/hour to this type of tipped employee.)  Under both the Federal and Iowa statutes, employers must guarantee employees at least $7.25/hour (the federal and Iowa minimum wage) through a combination of…
On April 1, 2019, the Department of Labor announced a Notice of Proposed Rule Making (NPRM) for Part 791 of Title 29 of the Code of Federal Regulations for the Fair Labor Standards Act that will “ revise and clarify the responsibilities of employers and joint employers to employees in joint employer arrangements”.  This regulation had not been meaningfully revised since 1958. The DOL has been busy, indeed.  This NPRM joins two others that…
On March 28, the U.S. Department of Labor announced a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) to clarify and amend the agency rules regarding the regular rate provisions of the Fair Labor Standards Act that have not been comprehensively revised in more than 50 years.  Yesterday’s announcement was expected, per previous posts on this blog (11/2/18 & 2/5/19).  The DOL states that the proposal will: clarify and better define the regular rate for today’s workplace…
As we discussed here, on Thursday, March 7, 2019, the Wage and Hour Division of the United States Department of Labor publicly released notice that it was proposing a change to the rules establishing the standards that needed to be met for persons in certain “white collar” positions to be exempt from the overtime requirements of the Fair Labor Standards Act.  While through the press release, “the public” knows what is being proposed, the…
Recently, an employer came to the firm with a letter  from the DOL’s Wage and Hour Division (WHD).  The letter was unlike any other I had seen WHD send out during my career or since I retired.  After checking, I learned it is a new approach to compliance by the WHD. The letter’s key paragraph explains its purpose this way: “This office has information that you may be engaged in compensation practices that do not…
On Thursday, March 7, 2019, the Wage and Hour Division of the United States Department of Labor issued a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking regarding certain of the “white collar” exemptions from the overtime requirements of the Fair Labor Standards Act.  In January 2019, we noted that this would be coming. The proposed rule would increase the minimum salary under the salary basis test from the current $455 per week  ($23,660 annualized) to $679 per week…