15 Employment and Labor Resolutions for 2015, part 1 of 3

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Now that the new year is well under way and we have all had an opportunity to settle in and organize ourselves for the coming year, I thought I should share some critical chores that need to be attended to keep you safely out of any legal twists.

Here are your first five resolutions as shared by Constangy, Brooks:

1. Make sure your “independent contractors” are really independent contractors. “Independent contractors” are under scrutiny by the Internal Revenue Service, the U.S. Department of Labor, the National Labor Relations Board, state and local agencies, plaintiffs’ lawyers, and union organizers. A mis-classification can cost you back taxes, back pay (including overtime), and back benefits, as well as penalties and interest. If you determine the manner in which an independent contractor performs his duties, including where and when the duties are performed, then the person is an employee.

2. Review your email policies. The NLRB recently found that employees generally have a right to use employer email systems during non-working time in support of union organizing and concerted activity. The Board’s decision means that many employer email use policies, as currently drafted, would probably be found to violate the National Labor Relations Act if an unfair labor practice charge were filed or a union tried to organize employees and argued that the employer’s email policy interfered with the organizing efforts. In light of the new “quickie election” rule that the NLRB issued last month, both union and non-union employers would be well advised to review their email policies and revise as needed. (The “quickie election” rule is scheduled to take effect on April 14, but the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and other employer groups, including the Society for Human Resources Management, filed suit on Monday seeking to block the rule.)

3. Review your policies on social media, confidentiality, and “courtesy.” The NLRB is going after garden-variety employer policies, taking the position that the policies interfere with and have a chilling effect on employees’ rights to engage in concerted activity. Among the commonplace policies under attack are those requiring that information about the company or employees be kept confidential; policies requiring that employees treat each other with courtesy, respect, and civility; and even some policies requiring that employees not disclose confidential and proprietary information. As with the email policies, a non-compliant policy could result in an unfair labor practice charge or the setting aside of an employer victory in a union election.

4. Review your severance agreements. The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission has taken the position that certain standard provisions in employee separation agreements unlawfully interfere with employee rights to bring or cooperate in the investigation of discrimination charges before the EEOC, and has filed suit against some employers using agreements with terms that the EEOC doesn’t like. One of the lawsuits has already been dismissed, but the court in that case did not make a ruling as to whether the EEOC’s position had merit. Even if you decide to take your chances with your current agreement, it’s not a bad idea to consider toning down provisions that you know the EEOC will find objectionable.

5. Review your leave policies and their administration. It’s not just the Family and Medical Leave Act anymore, although that’s enough in itself. You’ve probably seen that a number of states most recently, Massachusetts have enacted paid sick leave laws. Do your leave policies comply with the laws of the all the jurisdictions where you operate? And what do you do when an employee reaches the end of a sick leave or disability leave period? If you automatically terminate, then you could be in violation of the Americans with Disabilities Act as well as state or local disability rights laws.

This is a lot to take in, I know, but the reviews must be done by either your counsel (who specializes in labor law) or by an experienced human resource professional. Check in next week for another five HR resolutions.

Disclaimer I am not a licensed attorney. My blogs are based on my own experiences, interviews (where credited), and loads of research, and do not represent legal advice.
15 Employment and Labor Resolutions for 2015, part 1 of 3

OFCCP Releases Final Rule on LGBT Non-discrimination

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The Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs announced this month that it is issuing a Final Rule that implements President Obama’s Executive Order that prohibits federal contractors from discriminating on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity.

This Final Rule will be effective 120 days after publication in the Federal Register (which has not yet occurred) and will apply to federal contracts entered into or modified on or after that date.

What does the Final Rule change?

The EO Clause has been changed to include “sexual orientation” and “gender identity.” Those contractors who incorporate the EO clause by reference, however, will not need to physically alter their subcontracts or purchase orders.

Contractors must notify applicants and employees of their non-discrimination policy by posting the “EEO is the Law” poster. Presumably, the government will be updating this poster to include these two new categories.

Contractors are also obligated to expressly state in job advertisements that all qualified candidates will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, or national origin. The Final Rule provides that employers can satisfy this requirement by including that verbiage or simply indicating that the company is an “equal opportunity employer.”

Although employees hired outside of the United States are not covered by the regulations, if a contractor is not able to obtain a visa of entry for an employee or potential employee to a country in which it is doing business, the regulations require the contractor to notify both the OFCCP and the U.S. Department of State if the contractor believes that the refusal of the visa is due to the individual’s protected characteristic. This requirement now applies to sexual orientation and gender identity status. 

Affirmative Action Plan Placement Goals Changes

The section of the regulations regarding Placement Goals in AAPs has also been updated. Contractors are prohibited from extending preferences on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, or national origin due to specific placement goals.

What is not affected by the Final Rule?

The Final Rule does not change contractors’ reporting and information collection requirements, so contractors are not required to survey or report on the number of LGBT applicants or employees. The required components of Affirmative Action Plans are also not affected.

What should contractors do to comply?

The Final Rule simply adds sexual orientation and gender identity to the sections of the regulation where the other protected categories are listed, so the affect on federal contractors is limited. Contractors should, however, begin the process of determining whether and when they need to do the following:

• Update the EO Clause in subcontracts and purchase orders;

• Amend the EEO and AA policy to include sexual orientation and gender identity;

• Obtain new “EEO is the Law” posters;

• Modify their EEO tagline on job solicitations; and

• Train appropriate personnel on the new protections.

In addition, the OFCCP has issued FAQs regarding its interpretation of the Final Rule. These will probably be updated periodically as contractors pose questions to the OFCCP.

Why no proposed rule?

The OFCCP bypassed the Notice of Proposed Rule-making and comment period. They stated that the “Executive Order was very clear about the steps the Department of Labor was required to take and left no discretion regarding how to proceed. In such cases, principles of administrative law allow an agency to publish final rules without prior notice and comment when the agency only makes a required change to conform a regulation to the enabling authority and does not have any discretion in doing so.”

If you have any questions regarding this Final Rule, please contact a board certified labor attorney.

OFCCP Releases Final Rule on LGBT Non-discrimination

COMP ME! Comp-time and you . . or not

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Compensatory time is a beautiful thing . . . but you may not be able to use it or grant it; and if you do, you could be setting up yourself – and your company – for major trouble.

What is Comp-time?

According to the Office of Personnel Management site at www.opm.gov, comp-time is:

“Time off with pay in lieu of overtime pay for irregular or occasional overtime work,

or

When permitted under agency flexible work schedule programs, time off with pay in lieu of overtime pay for regularly scheduled or irregular or occasional overtime work.”

Key phrase: Agency

All employers are not eligible to offer compensatory time, only government agencies as in actual government offices, not companies that simply do business under or have a government contract. Federal, state, county, city, township, village, as long as the IRS defines a payroll is defined as a government payroll, compensatory time may be granted if the agency has a defined flexible work schedule program.

. . . but, I own my own business

Uncle Sam doesn’t really care – at least, not in this instance. All businesses – private, public; small, large; government, utility, railroad – you name the employer type – each must follow the payroll rules outlined in the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 (FLSA).

Under the current rules, which were updated as recently as the first administration in the second Bush era, all positions that do not meet the overtime exemption rule (see later blog for definitions and explanations) are to be paid at no less than the prevailing minimum wage for up to forty work hours in a seven-day period. Any time worked over forty hours in a seven-day period must be paid at one-and-a-half times the employee’s regular hourly wage.

Key phrase: Any work

“Any work,” is defined as anything done to benefit the employer, whether or not the activity is described within a person’s job description.

Let’s say you’re an employer and you hold mandatory employee meetings of any kind every Wednesday during the lunch hour. You buy everyone pizza and have drinks available for everyone, but you don’t pay them for the lunch hour. Are you violating FLSA?

Oh, yeah.

The meeting, any meeting, especially any kind of meeting, party, whatever, you make mandatory is considered “work suffered” under FLSA and is compensable at the same rate as regular “work suffered”.  If that meeting time adds an extra hour to the forty everyone has already put in during your policy-defined workweek, then you owe all your non-exempt staff time-and-one-half pay for that extra hour.

Let’s say your office needs to be painted, but you don’t have painters budgeted for this year and you ask for volunteers to help you paint over the weekend. You’ll provide the food and soft drinks, they need only come dressed to get dirty. Do you owe these “volunteers” time-and-one-half?

You bet you do: though the work is done on the weekend, it’s still work, and under FLSA, it’s work “suffered” for the benefit of the company. Do you owe overtime for both Saturday and Sunday?

Maybe not: Whether you owe overtime for both days depends upon how your policy book defines your work-week. If your workweek is defined as Monday through Sunday, then, yes, you would owe two days’ worth of overtime. If your workweek is defined as Sunday through Saturday, then you would only owe overtime for Saturday, but still owe regular wages for Sunday.

Companies that require employees to come in early to punch in, make coffee, open up, or whatever, as well as those that require people to stay after hours to close up in any way, must also pay people for their time.

On-call time is also compensated at the same rate as regular work time. If on-call time exceeds the forty-hours in one week timeframe, then they, too, are paid at the premium rate.

. . . but, I can’t afford to pay overtime

Again, I say: Uncle Sam doesn’t care; and let me just add: tough. The rules are clear. They’ve been around for a long time. Since 1938, in fact. You have the Internet. As a fully-grown human, capable of owning a business – or at least running a business – you are expected to have done your “due diligence”.

In other words, the OFCCP, DoL, or any other investigating agency will not accept excuses for what you didn’t know you should know. (I know this, because my first HR job was with an employer who was audited by the OFCCP — two weeks after I started — and let’s just say my predecessors were all let go for good reason).

Is there any way around the rule?

Well, of course there is.

Sort of.

The best way to “get around” this rule is to work within the rule. If you know you must have weekly meetings, one thing you could do is hold the same meeting at least twice and stagger the attendants. This, way, the office stays open, but you will be short coverage for the length of the meeting.

If you must have full coverage, you could have the meeting after hours, as in, immediately after closing, one day a week, and then allow the same amount of time off during the same seven-day work period as the meeting to all non-exempt employees.  Exempt employees are not paid by the hour, so no other compensation is needed for them — money or time, unless specified in the company’s policies.

Key phrase: seven-day work period

Notice I’ve never denoted a pay-period. I’ve always described a seven-day period, and this is because FLSA dictates seven consecutive days as a work period.

If you want to grant a form of comp-time, it must be done the same week during which the extra activity occurs. Technically, this is not comp-time as defined by FLSA, so I always advise not to refer to this time off as “comp-time”. If you’re ever audited by the government, know that employees are always interviewed. Their phrasing and understanding can get you into trouble. Save yourself at the start, and take my advice: don’t ever call this time off “comp-time”.

What if I break the rules?

Well, it’ll cost you, regardless your intent. According to the DoL site, the penalties are:

“Employers who willfully or repeatedly violate the minimum wage or overtime pay requirements are subject to a civil money penalty of up to $1,000 for each such violation.

Willful violations of the FLSA may result in criminal prosecution and the violator fined up to $10,000. A second conviction may result in imprisonment.”

Yikes!

The audit process is not fun, though I guarantee you’ll learn A LOT. I know I did. If you’re interested, take a look at the process on the DoL site. It is every bit as grueling as it reads.

If you’re starting a business, learn the rules and follow them. Teach everyone the rules and their rights and responsibilities, even if everyone is non-exempt and has no supervisory role.

If you’ve already started your business and you know you are in violation in some way, change what you’re doing N-O-W. Note when you learned what you were supposed to do. Note each phase of your correction. Note when the total correction is in place. Keep these notes in a special notebook along with your new policy, any training material, and training proof. Never lose a shred of this notebook and make certain it’s the first thing you hand an auditor if, by any chance, you get audited.

What are the chances of an audit?

Well, from what I’ve been able to find, the DoL hired five hundred auditors to keep up with all the new businesses. When I contacted my local federal DoL auditor, she told me that it may take years for her to get to a business, but once she’s there, she’ll return every two years for the life of the company; because rules change, and people generally cannot keep up with every change. The government always needs money, and fines are a wonderful way to generate some extra cash.

For more information on different employee statuses, audits, and fines, speak to a local labor attorney or go on-line to www.dol.gov/wage & hour.

Disclaimer I am not a licensed attorney or certified accountant. My blogs are based on my own experiences, interviews (where credited), and loads of research.

Copyright © 2009 Diane Faulkner

COMP ME! Comp-time and you . . or not

Contract employee, independent contractor…(part 3 of 3)

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When should I contract?

Well, if you know you want to have control over when and how work is done, as well as who does the work, then you should either hire an employee or do a temp-to-hire. Between the two, a temp-to-hire saves at least a contract’s worth of employment expenses, so if total cost is a factor, choose temp-to-hire, at least for non-managerial positions.

If you need to have specific skill sets and experience right away, a temp-to-hire is also less expensive if the contract is short enough. You have control over how work is done as well as a double-probationary period (the temp-time as well as your own period), which is plenty long enough to see if you have a good personality fit.

If you need a specific project completed that requires a specialized skill set not found in-house and not typically offered through an agency, then an independent contractor is the way to go. No employment costs, no unemployment costs, and you can terminate whenever you want for any reason.

Knowing the difference among these three classifications, should you ever have a government audit, can save your company thousands, if not millions, of dollars, and may even keep you in business. Many a company has felt the pinch of Uncle Sam to the tune of $10,000 as a flat fine for breaking the FLSA law and the additional $1000 for every other incident found during an audit.

For more information on different employee statuses, audits, and fines, speak to a local labor attorney or go on-line to www.dol.gov/wage & hour.

Disclaimer I am not a licensed attorney or certified accountant. My blogs are based on my own experiences, interviews (where credited), and loads of research.

Copyright © 2009 Diane Faulkner

Contract employee, independent contractor…(part 3 of 3)

Contract employee, independent contractor…there’s a difference? (Part 2 of 3)

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Independent contractors have clients; temporaries and temp-to-perms do not

An independent contractor (IC) is independent of any other person or company than h/her own, which could be made up of one person, and is bound only by h/her own company’s policies and procedures, not yours. An IC seeks out work, negotiates contracts for work, is free to sub-contract work, sets the time schedule for work to be completed, is responsible for h/her own taxes, benefits, pension, and behavior. The contract between an IC and a company is solely for a result by a particular date, not, unless otherwise negotiated, for a particular person to perform work directed in any form by the client company.

The contract must be able to be terminated at any time and for any reason, or no reason at all, by either party. The IC must also be free to obtain other contracts – and work them – simultaneously. “Full-time” is not a phrase associated with an IC contract. Specified number of hours, hourly wage, salary, all these words imply “employee.”

In the former example, if I contracted an IC to be my credit union manager, I would not be able to do a background check or skills test. I would, of course, ask for and call on references to elicit the same type of information, but in the end, I don’t have the control to be any more thorough. If appropriate, though, I can ask for work samples. I can interview the person to determine fit, and I can also directly negotiate contract length and price. In short, I set my company up as the IC’s client.

The contract is everything

As a potential client, I need to think of everything I need and negotiate those needs into the contract. The key here is to be aware of contract law as applied to ICs under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA). Unless there is some sort of regulating body that states a particular job must be done by a set procedure, I cannot write any procedure into a contract. If I do, then I create a regular employee under FLSA. Even if there is a particular person under the IC’s employ who has specialized skills necessary to complete the contract, I cannot write in who is to work the project. To do so creates an employee. An IC must be free to subcontract anyone s/he deems qualified to do the work.

Behavioral control

Where companies get into trouble working with an IC is control. Behavioral control of both the IC, but more so with its own employees, especially managers, who may not be schooled in working with a person who represents an entirely different company, but works alongside or for h/her.

The moment a manager has a counseling session with an IC is the moment the IC becomes an employee (EE). The moment a company requires an IC wear a particular outfit to represent the client company and not the contractor is the moment the IC becomes an EE. In the same vein, when a manager requests or demands a particular procedure from an IC solely because the procedure is customary or spelled out in the client company’s procedure manual, the IC becomes an EE.

But what if the IC is doing something wrong?

It is up to the client company to have a provision written into the contract that any of its employees can stop work on a contract project when it is apparent or suspected that an IC’s procedure will cause harm to a person, place, thing, or financially adversely affect the client company. Otherwise, the person who notices the potential harmful procedure must bring the person or matter to the attention to whomever is responsible for administering the contract, usually a top-level manager or a human resource contact, to make the IC stop work. At that time, the sub-contractor is to the IC for counseling or termination, or the client company can discuss the matter with the contracting IC or terminate the contract.

That’s actually the beauty of working with an IC: there doesn’t have to be any counseling, you can just terminate the contract and find someone else to complete the job, and you don’t have to worry about anyone filing unemployment credits against you.

And that’s the bad part of working with an IC: if you have to terminate a contract with a person with a special skill-set and experience level, it can be difficult to replace that person from within the company. You pretty much have to seek out another IC.

For more information on different employee statuses, audits, and fines, speak to a local labor attorney or go on-line to www.dol.gov/wage &  hour.

Disclaimer I am not a licensed attorney or certified accountant. My blogs are based on my own experiences, interviews (where credited), and loads of research.

Copyright © 2009 Diane Faulkner

Contract employee, independent contractor…there’s a difference? (Part 2 of 3)