Vision Payroll

The US Department of Labor (DOL) recently announced a $3 million National Emergency Grant to create temporary jobs for eligible dislocated workers to assist with cleanup and recovery efforts after severe storms and tornadoes struck the central and western areas of Massachusetts on June 1, 2011.

Grant to Help Repair Public Buildings and Schools

“By creating jobs, today’s grant will help repair the many public buildings and schools that sustained damage as a result of the severe weather,” said Secretary of Labor Hilda L. Solis. “I am pleased that the Labor Department can assist Massachusetts residents as they recover from the storms and rebuild their communities.”

Grant Awarded To State Agency

The grant was awarded to the Massachusetts Department of Workforce Development.

Hampden County Is Eligible for Public Assistance

On June 15, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) declared Hampden County eligible for FEMA’s Public Assistance Program. Worcester County has been declared eligible for Individual Assistance, but not for Public Assistance at this time. Additional counties may be included under the grant if FEMA determines such inclusion is warranted.

National Emergency Grants Are Part of Discretionary Fund

National Emergency Grants are part of the secretary of labor’s discretionary fund and are awarded based on a state or commonwealth’s ability to meet specific guidelines.

The US Department of Labor (DOL) recently announced a $1,570,907 grant to assist about 400 workers affected by the closing of Sonoco Packaging Products in Devens, Mass., and layoffs at Debbie’s Staffing in Ayer, Mass.

DOL Secretary Solis Comments on Grant

“Many of these workers — who have lost jobs through no fault of their own — face significant language and education barriers to new employment,” said Secretary of Labor Hilda L. Solis. “This grant will make available the services they need to re-enter the workforce.”

Merrimack Valley Workforce Investment Board Will Operate Grant

Awarded to the Massachusetts Department of Workforce Development, this grant will be operated by the Merrimack Valley Workforce Investment Board. It will provide these dislocated workers, many of whom are also certified as eligible for Trade Adjustment Assistance (TAA), with access to “wrap-around” and supportive services that are not available through the TAA program. The workers that are not TAA-eligible will have access to the full array of training and employment-related services under this grant, including English for speakers of other languages classes and assistance to prepare for the General Educational Development tests.

Additional Funding Will Be Released as Needed

Of the $1,570,907 announced today, $701,933 will be released initially. Additional funding up to the amount approved will be made available as the commonwealth demonstrates a continued need for funding.

National Emergency Grants Are Part of Discretionary Fund

National Emergency Grants are part of the secretary of labor’s discretionary fund and are awarded based on a state or commonwealth’s ability to meet specific guidelines.

The US Department of Labor (DOL) has announced that QuikTrip Corp. (QuikTrip) will pay $747,729 in overtime back wages for violations of the Fair Labor Standards Act. The 3,819 current and former employees affected will receive an average of $196 each.

In announcing the settlement Secretary of Labor Hilda L Solis said, “I am pleased that this case has resulted in almost $750,000 in back wages being paid to thousands of workers across nine states. I am committed to ensuring that every worker is paid the full wages he or she is due, and that those who work overtime receive the compensation to which they are legally entitled.”

Non-exempt employees must be paid overtime at one and one-half times their regular rate of pay. QuikTrip erred by failing to include the amount of non-discretionary bonuses when calculating the regular rate of pay to be used in the overtime premium calculation to employees in Arizona, Georgia, Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, Missouri, Nebraska, Oklahoma and Texas.

Vision Payroll strongly recommends consulting a qualified labor law attorney to ensure that overtime pay is properly calculated.

The US Department of Labor (DOL) has announced a settlement of a lawsuit it filed against Partners HealthCare Systems, Inc. (Partners) and its affiliates alleging violations of the Fair Labor Standards Act.

According to George Rioux, director of the Boston District Office of the DOL’s Wage and Hour Division (WHD), “The problem was that employees were working for more than one Partners-affiliated hospital or health care facility during a single workweek, but their hours worked during those workweeks were not being combined to determine if overtime was due.”

Management of Partners became aware of the problem and contacted the WHD, which followed with an investigation. The total back wages to be paid for the period from January 1, 2007 to March 21, 2009 is $2,756,514.

The consent judgment was agreed to by both parties. In addition to Partners, the defendants were The Brigham and Women’s Hospital Inc., Faulkner Hospital Inc., The General Hospital Corp. (Massachusetts General Hospital), The McLean Hospital Corp., North Shore Medical Center Inc., North Shore Physicians Group Inc., Newton-Wellesley Hospital, The Spaulding Rehabilitation Hospital Corp., Rehabilitation Hospital of the Cape and Islands, Shaughnessy-Kaplan Rehabilitation Hospital Inc., Partners Home Care Inc., Partners Private Care Inc., FRC Inc. and Partners Community Healthcare Inc.

Vision Payroll strongly recommends consulting a qualified labor law attorney to ensure that overtime pay is properly calculated.

The US Department of Labor (DOL) recently issued Administrator signed Opinion Letter FLSA2009-10. Although Opinion Letters only apply to the exact set of facts and circumstances presented in each case, they are a valuable aid in understanding current interpretations of the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA). Because the letter was apparently never mailed after it was signed, the DOL under new Secretary Hilda L. Solis has decided to withdraw the letter for further consideration. Therefore, this letter may not be relied upon as a statement of agency policy. It is possible that a different conclusion may be reached when the Opinion Letter is reissued.

In this Opinion Letter, the DOL confirmed that community members who coach athletic teams qualify as teachers under the FLSA. Although a teaching certificate indicates that an employee qualifies for the exemption, there is no requirement that a teacher possess a certificate to qualify. Further, “there is no minimum education or academic degree required” for the exemption. Coaches qualify as teachers if their primary duty is “teaching and imparting knowledge to students in an educational establishment.” Since these community members apparently do not provide other services to the school district and there is no salary requirement for teachers under the FLSA, the coaches qualify and are exempt from minimum wage and overtime requirements.

State laws may provide rules that are more beneficial to the employee and must be followed. The DOL may come to a different conclusion when it reissues the Opinion Letter after further consideration. Contact Vision Payroll if you have questions about this Opinion Letter.

The US Department of Labor (DOL) recently issued Administrator signed Opinion Letter FLSA2009-9. Although Opinion Letters only apply to the exact set of facts and circumstances presented in each case, they are a valuable aid in understanding current interpretations of the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA). Because the letter was apparently never mailed after it was signed, the DOL under new Secretary Hilda L. Solis has decided to withdraw the letter for further consideration. Therefore, this letter may not be relied upon as a statement of agency policy. It is possible that a different conclusion may be reached when the Opinion Letter is reissued.

In this Opinion Letter, the DOL ruled that civilian helicopter pilots employed by the Division of State Police do not qualify as exempt employees under the FLSA. The pilots are not executive employees since “their primary duty is not managing the department or subdivision in which they are employed.” They are not administrative employees since piloting a helicopter is not “office or non-manual” work. The DOL has long held that pilots do not qualify under learned professional exemption since their primary duty does not have any “advanced knowledge that must be customarily acquired by a prolonged course of specialized intellectual instruction.”

State laws may provide rules that are more beneficial to the employee and must be followed. The DOL may come to a different conclusion when it reissues the Opinion Letter after further consideration. Contact Vision Payroll if you have questions about this Opinion Letter.

The US Department of Labor (DOL) recently issued Administrator signed Opinion Letter FLSA2009-8. Although Opinion Letters only apply to the exact set of facts and circumstances presented in each case, they are a valuable aid in understanding current interpretations of the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA). Because the letter was apparently never mailed after it was signed, the DOL under new Secretary Hilda L. Solis has decided to withdraw the letter for further consideration. Therefore, this letter may not be relied upon as a statement of agency policy. It is possible that a different conclusion may be reached when the Opinion Letter is reissued.

In this Opinion Letter, the DOL reviews the pay policy of a company that engages primarily in “drain cleaning and other minor plumbing repair and replacement services involving such items as water heaters, disposals, and toilets.” Eighty to ninety percent of the company’s revenues are from retail sales or services to private homeowners. The technicians receive pay based on twenty-three percent of the revenues attributable to their labor and five percent of the revenue attributable to their parts sales. They also receive a monthly bonus that is dependent on monthly sales. Their pay is guaranteed to be more than 150% of the minimum wage and is generally three to six times the minimum wage.

The DOL ruled that “because more than seventy-five percent of its annual dollar volume of goods and services it not for resale”, it qualifies as a “retail or service establishment”. Employees of such establishments are exempt from minimum wage if:

1. The regular rate of pay of such employee is in excess of one and one-half times the minimum wage, and
2. More than half of the employee’s compensation for a representative period (not less than one month) represents commissions on goods and services.

Since the employees apparently qualify under these standards, they are exempt from the minimum wage laws.

State laws may provide rules that are more beneficial to the employee and must be followed. The DOL may come to a different conclusion when it reissues the Opinion Letter after further consideration. Contact Vision Payroll if you have questions about this Opinion Letter.

The US Department of Labor (DOL) recently issued Administrator signed Opinion Letter FLSA2009-7. Although Opinion Letters only apply to the exact set of facts and circumstances presented in each case, they are a valuable aid in understanding current interpretations of the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA). Because the letter was apparently never mailed after it was signed, the DOL under new Secretary Hilda L. Solis has decided to withdraw the letter for further consideration. Therefore, this letter may not be relied upon as a statement of agency policy. It is possible that a different conclusion may be reached when the Opinion Letter is reissued.

In this Opinion Letter, a county ambulance service requires its employees to be on-call approximately forty hours per week. On-call employees must carry a pager, respond in uniform within five minutes, and abstain from alcohol and other substances. Over a test period of two months, the typical on-call employee responded twelve or thirteen times in a month.

Generally, on-call time is compensable when the restrictions are too burdensome or callbacks are too frequent to allow employees to use the on-call time freely. The DOL concluded that since the town was small enough that employees could travel anywhere in town and still be able to respond in the allotted time, since on-call employees were not disciplined even when taking as long as eight minutes to respond, and since the number of callbacks was not too frequent, employees had effective use of the on-call time for personal purposes and were not required to be compensated (other than time spent on call-backs).

State laws may provide rules that are more beneficial to the employee and must be followed. The DOL may come to a different conclusion when it reissues the Opinion Letter after further consideration. Contact Vision Payroll if you have questions about this Opinion Letter.

Secretary of Labor Hilda L. Solis recently released the US Department of Labor’s (DOL) fiscal year (FY) 2010 budget request. The budget requests $104.5 billion including $13.3 billion in discretionary funding and 17,477 full-time equivalent employees (FTEs). This represents an increase of $400 million in non-Recovery Act discretionary spending and 997 non-recovery Act FTEs.

Solis said that the DOL will measure its progress in FY 2010 through its progress toward meeting four strategic goals:

Goal 1 — A Prepared Workforce: Develop a prepared workforce by providing effective training and support services to new and incumbent workers and supplying high quality information on the economy and labor market.

Goal 2 — A Competitive Workforce: Meet the competitive labor demands of the worldwide economy by enhancing the effectiveness and efficiency of the workforce development and regulatory systems that assist workers and employers in meeting the challenges of global competition.

Goal 3 — Safe and Secure Workplaces: Promote workplaces that are safe, healthful and fair; guarantee workers receive the wages due them; foster equal opportunity in employment; and protect veterans’ employment and re-employment rights.

Goal 4 — Strengthened Economic Protections: Protect and strengthen worker economic security through effective and efficient provision of unemployment insurance and workers’ compensation; ensuring union transparency; and securing pension and health benefits.

To meet these goals, the DOL plans to hire 670 new enforcement staff including 200 new Front-line Investigators for the Wage and Hour Division, 130 new Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) officers, 75 new staff at the Employee Benefits Security Administration (EBSA) and 213 new staff at the Office of Federal Contract Compliance (OFCCP).

The DOL also plans to use $8.7 billion for employment and training programs, including $50 million for green jobs. From the Recovery Act funding, the DOL intends $500 million for competitive grants for green worker training. Another $135 million will go to the Career Pathways Innovation Fund, formerly known as Community-Based Job Training Grants. The new program will focus on developing career pathways in community colleges for high-growth careers in partnership with workforce investment boards, faith-based groups and other community groups. Transitional jobs program testing will receive $50 million to see if such programs can help individuals with severe employment barriers gain the skills and experience they need to find unsubsidized jobs. YouthBuild is scheduled to receive $114 million for low-income and at-risk youth to receive the opportunity to obtain a high school diploma or GED while building affordable housing and learning the skills necessary for construction jobs. An additional 7,200 homeless veterans, especially women, would be the beneficiaries of $255 million as would green jobs training for veterans and employment workshops for veterans to assist in the transition to civilian life.

Vision Payroll has provided this brief summary of the budget proposal. Interested parties may find more detailed information at the DOL website.

The US Department of Labor (DOL) announced recently that it has filed suit against former National Football League (NFL) player Michael Vick. Vick, who formerly played for the Atlanta Falcons, is scheduled to be released in May from a Kansas prison. The suit alleges, “Vick and others violated federal employee benefits law by making a series of prohibited transfers from a pension plan sponsored by one of his companies. The [DOL] also simultaneously filed an adversary complaint in federal bankruptcy court to prevent Vick from discharging his alleged debt to the MV7 retirement plan.”

Vick, who previously filed for bankruptcy, owned MV7, a celebrity marketing enterprise. MV7 sponsored a defined benefit plan for current and former employees.

Secretary of Labor Hilda L. Solis, said, “This action sends a message that the [DOL] will not tolerate the misuse of plan money and will take whatever steps necessary to recover the assets owed to eligible workers.”

The suit alleges that Vick, a star at Virginia Tech before joining the NFL, made $1.35 million in prohibited transfers from the plan in violation of his duties under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act or ERISA. The money was allegedly “used to help pay the criminal restitution imposed upon Vick after his conviction for unlawful dog fighting as well as his attorney in the bankruptcy cases.”

Contact Vision Payroll if you have any questions on this matter.