Practical HR Tips, News & Advice. Updated Daily.
Employers should take note: more of their employees are coming to and going from the office via public transportation. That’s more than an interesting statistic — it has implications for employers. Employees who take public transportation to work may benefit from a tax break, but only if their employer sponsors a qualified transportation fringe benefit […]
The Labor Department has extended the comment period for its proposed rule to provide minimum wage and overtime protections for in-home companions by nine days, the agency announced in a March 9 release. The division published a notice of proposed rulemaking in the Federal Register on Dec. 27, 2011, with a comment period originally set […]
As the Department of Labor’s Wage and Hour Division steps up enforcement initiatives, the need for employers to monitor their wage and hour practices is growing. Speaking at the Society for Human Resource Management’s 2012 Employment Law and Legislative Conference March 5, Tammy McCutchen of Littler Mendelson in Washington, a former Bush appointee at DOL, […]
Never base a worker classification decision on uncertainty, according to attorney Christine Walters. Walters, a Maryland HR consultant presenting at the Society for Human Resource Management’s legislative conference in Washington, D.C., March 5, ticked off the many reasons employers might be inclined to classify a worker as an independent contractor. Among them: to avoid paying […]
Employers will now be able to calculate the depreciation of vehicles — passenger cars, trucks and vans that they provide to employee as a fringe benefit — that they first put into service in calendar year 2012, since the IRS has released the new depreciation deduction limits. Revenue Procedure (Rev. Proc.) 2012-23, released March 4, […]
It’s been two years since passage of a controversial federal law guaranteed break time and private space for nursing mothers to express milk at work. Women’s rights and business groups say many women who could benefit from the new right may not know about it. Regardless of whether or not employees are aware, the Department […]
Employers and “super commuters” — employees who live outside of the boundaries of the metropolitan area where they work — may wonder whether there are any tax breaks for someone who practically breaks their neck to get to their employer’s place of business. A recent study by the Rudin Center for Transportation at New York University […]
The Labor Department underestimated the cost of its proposal extending minimum wage and overtime protections to in-home caregivers underestimates, according to an industry group representing in-home care franchise owners. If the proposal is implemented as planned, the study concludes, both the quality of care provided to seniors and the financial health of the in-home care […]
Today the Labor Department extended the comment period for proposed changes to the Fair Labor Standards exemption for domestic caregivers. To date the agency has already received a flood of comments on the proposed regulation which would remove domestic caregivers from the Fair Labor Standards Act’s current exemption from minimum wage and overtime pay. Currently, the FLSA provides […]
The Labor Department is taking its enforcement efforts onto military bases. DOL’s Wage and Hour Division this month announced that it is conducting a significant labor law enforcement effort on a multibillion dollar construction project at Fort Bliss in El Paso, Tex., focused on promoting contractor and subcontractor compliance with the Fair Labor Standards Act, […]