Articles Posted in overtime

Per Diem payments – payments intended to cover the daily expenses of an employee – count towards an employee’s regular rate of pay for calculating overtime according to the First Circuit. In Newman v. Advanced Technology Innovation Corp., the First Circuit found that if an employer calculates per diem on an hourly basis, then it…

Hot on the heels of his proposal to raise minimum wage for federal contractors to $10.10, President Obama is planning new overtime laws that will force businesses to pay overtime to more workers. The new regulations will make employees who are wrongly classified as “executive” or “professional” eligible for overtime. The President hopes to stop…

Drive a truck with a gross vehicle weight rating (GVWR) under 10,000 pounds? Then you are eligible for overtime. Importantly, the GVWR refers to the weight a vehicle can carry, not the weight it is actually carrying. The court decided that GVWR was more important than the actual weight, because the actual weight can easily…

Pharmaceutical Representatives have long argued that they are entitled to overtime, working long hours with little authority to do much other than recommend products, and the Department of Labor has supported that view in its written opinions. But the pharmaceutical industry has refused to comply, arguing that those representatives are subject to the outside salesman…

In a victory for health and safety, as well as employment, Massachusetts hospitals are now prohibited from requiring nurses to work mandatory overtime. Hospitals can no longer require nurses to work beyond their regularly scheduled shifts, except in cases of emergency. Nurses may still volunteer to work more hours, but those nurses who work the…

Massachusetts employees working for a Massachusetts company receive the benefit of the Massachusetts Wage Act even if they work at the company’s facility in Connecticut. The Federal District Court focused on language in the Wage Act that refers to any “employer” in the Commonwealth, not to any “employee” in the Commonwealth. Given that the employee…

Underwriters tasked with approving loans in accordance with detailed guidelines provided by their employer are not exempt – that is, they are entitled to overtime. Many employers misclassify their Underwriters and deny them overtime. These employers have long justified the misclassification on the “administrative exemption.” This week, the Second Circuit Court of Appeals finally laid…

With all the talk of possible casinos on Indian reservation land in Massachusetts, not much has been said about whether those tribes would have to follow labor and employment laws. A decision this week from the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit in Washington State may shed light on at least one of those…

Gordon Law Group, LLP and Greater Boston Legal Services (GBLS) announced today an agreement to settle a federal class action lawsuit against Michael Bianco, Inc., the former New Bedford factory that manufactured military gear for the U.S. Department of Defense. The company was the target of a March 2007 federal immigration raid that was broadly…

The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court, in Mullally v. Waste Management of Massachusetts, has ruled that employers must use the prevailing rate for purposes of calculating overtime on all public works projects. The Massachusetts overtime statute, M.G.L. c. 151, § 1A, states that “no employer in the commonwealth shall employ any of his employees …for a…