Tackling the Ever-Challenging Wage-and-Hour Laws

Posted on July 25, 2011 by Doug Riegelhuth in Legal, Wage-and-Hour

By Doug Riegelhuth, TriNet attorney

It’s a safe bet that almost every startup and small business has run across a thorny wage-and-hour issue. The sheer number and complexity of legal standards that currently exist make it nearly impossible to avoid such issues. It’s especially intense here in California where it’s almost impossible not to violate one or another wage-and-hour standard. And, across the country, recent news of decisions in two high-profile lawsuits (Dukes v. Wal-Mart and Sullivan v. Oracle) has focused even more attention onto wage-and-hour issues. We’d like to do the same.

While TriNet’s co-employment model allows clients to offload much of the administrative HR burden to TriNet, it’s paramount for clients to remain hands-on when it comes to wage-and-hour. To help, we’d like to spotlight some key wage-and-hour topics in an occasional series of posts on this blog. We’ll address recent developments, explore nuances of the law, and share best practices around policies and system improvements. Future topics may include:

• issues raised when non-exempt employees work in another state;
• dealing with continued uncertainty regarding meal and rest period standards; and
• using arbitration provisions to avoid agency proceedings, lawsuits, and class actions.

Let us know what wage-and-hour issue you’d like us to cover by leaving a comment below. We’d love to hear your feedback. In the meantime, if you just can’t wait until our next blog on the topic, please check out our CEO’s blog on Forbes.com. Earlier this spring, he addressed wage-and-hour issues of two kinds: part 1 is about misclassifying employees as independent contractors, and part 2 is about exempt vs. non-exempt employees.

We look forward to an informative and entertaining dialogue with you.