The Top FLSA articles of 2011:
Chinese Overtime, Exotic Dancers, and more
We wanted to ring in the New Year with an overview of the top posts of 2011. The year brought a lot of new cases and new clients and many of them found us through some of our posts below.
The range of topics covers a lot of ground, including Chinese overtime, exotic dancers misclassified as independent contractors, restaurant tip sharing and a blog on a well-known furniture company. So grab a cup of coffee and read our top blog posts of 2011. The Top 5 FLSA blog posts of 2011 1. Ashley Furniture owes overtime pay to hourly employees in Lubbock, Texas This post garnered quite a bit of traffic on our site and was the top post for 2011. After blogging on the news that Ashley Furniture Home Stores settled a wage and hour lawsuit involving 1780 current and former Texas employees in Lubbock, Amarillo, and Midland, we received several calls from clients who also worked for the company. Here’s a link to the full article. 2. Five ways your employer might be violating the fluctuating work week or "Chinese overtime" law. We began this article with this question, “The more I work, the less I make per hour. How can that be legal?” Well, if your employer pays you using the fluctuating work week (FWW) or Chinese overtime pay this is what happens to you. The fluctuating work week is a legal way to pay employees, but it is also one of the oddest pay structures laid out in the Fair Labor Standards Act and employers constantly misapply it on employee paychecks, shorting you out of your hard-earned wages. We imagine most people land on this article because they want to understand this confusing pay structure. We hope people get a good explanation from our articles and remember if you have any questions, give us a call or send us a contact form. Here’s the article: “The more I work, the less I make per hour. How can that be legal?” 3. Is restaurant tip sharing legal? Texas tipped employees learn your rights This article applies to tipped employees nationwide, not just in Texas. Illegal tip pools are a common theme in restaurants across the country and it happens in even the swankiest restaurants. This post highlighted a wage and hour case involving two New York restaurants co-owned by NY Mets baseball player Carlos Beltran. The alleged wage violations included employees not paid minimum wage or spread of hours pay and employees forced to share tips with employees who customarily don’t receive them, like kitchen staff or managers. Here’s a link to this tip-sharing article. 4. Fixed Salary, Day Rate, Per Diem, and Piece-Rate Pay, Oh My! Some of the most common pay methods include a fixed salary, day rate, per diem rates, per job rate, or piece-rate. This post explains them all and focuses on field service workers, who are usually paid on a day rate or piece rate basis. However, many times we find that employers only pay a fixed salary or a piece rate system to field service workers without consideration for the overtime pay. This is illegal if you are a non-exempt employee. Remember, just because your employer tells you that you are not eligible for overtime pay doesn’t mean it’s true. Some of the biggest oil and gas companies in Texas have been brought to court for allegedly violating wage and overtime laws, including BP, Kinder Morgan, Moody International, and more. Here’s that link: Labor laws for fixed salary, day rate or per job rate workers 5. 3 exotic dancers file Texas wage claim against Jaguars Gold Club What goes on in strip clubs is usually kept underground, but lately the Jaguars Gold Club chain in west Texas and Arizona has been in the news recently. The Dallas Observer covered this post about our current case against the owners Jaguars. The issue in this case is that the strip clubs classify the dancers as Independent Contractors, which basically means the dancers work on a freelance basis. But the dancers have certain set shifts, are required to be on stage at certain times and some clubs even have dress codes. According to the the Fair Labor Standards Act, this is considered employment. The lawsuit alleges that the club violated the FLSA by failing to pay exotic dancers minimum wage or overtime pay. The dancers were also required to pay out from their tips every night in house fees, stage fees, DJ fees, and tips to the house mom and even emergency fees for leaving shifts early. There have been several developments in this case recently. Read about them here: Three exotic dancers file Texas wage claim against Jaguars Gold Club
Also: The Dallas Observer posted twice about this case our employment lawyers filed on behalf of our clients.
If you need a free case review from our employment lawyers, send us a contact form to tell us about your case. You can also call 888-449-2068 to start your case review today.
The Texas overtime lawyers at Kennedy Hodges represent workers nationwide and across Texas in: Houston, Dallas, Austin, San Antonio, Fort Worth, Pasadena, Laredo, Sugar Land, Lubbock, Illinios, New York, Massachusetts, Los Angeles, Chicago, Philadelphia, Phoenix, San Diego, San Jose, Jacksonville, Indianapolis, San Francisco, Columbus, Charlotte, Detroit, and more.
We wanted to ring in the New Year with an overview of the top posts of 2011. The year brought a lot of new cases and new clients and many of them found us through some of our posts below.