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Our colleague Michael Kun, attorney at Epstein Becker Green, has a post on the Wage & Hour Defense Blog that will be of interest to many of our readers in the retail industry: “Clarification of California’s Obscure ‘Suitable Seating’ Wage Rule Likely to Lead to More Employers Providing Seats – and to More Class Actions Against Those Who Don’t.”

Following is an excerpt:

The Court explained, “There is no principled reason for denying an employee a seat when he spends a substantial part of his workday at a single location performing tasks that could reasonably be done while seated, merely because his job duties include other tasks that must be done standing.”

The California Supreme Court’s opinion should help employers assess whether and when to make seating available to employees.  And employers should review their practices promptly to try to comply with the law.  Now that the California Supreme Court has provided some much needed guidance on the issue, employers can expect that their practices will be challenged, and those challenges will often come in the context of class action lawsuits.

Read the full post here.

Employment Law This Week – Epstein Becker Green’s new video program – has a story about an effort to unite retailers against a restrictive scheduling law in Washington, D.C.

The National Retail Federation issued a letter urging the city council in D.C. to abandon new scheduling legislation for retailers and restaurants. The proposed law would require businesses to post schedules three weeks in advance, with heavy penalties if they make any changes to the posted schedule. The NRF argues that this legislation removes the benefit of flexibility for employees, and that it places businesses at a competitive disadvantage against similar companies in surrounding states.

See below to view the story.

Employment Law This Week – a new video program from Epstein Becker Green – has a story this week about on-call shifts and the challenges they’re facing in court.

Both BCBG and Forever 21 have been hit with class-action wage theft suits over on-call scheduling. Many retailers are ending this practice, including Urban Outfitters, which was cited for possible violations of New York’s requirement to pay hourly staff for at least four hours when they report for work.


Click above or watch on YouTube or Vimeo – or download: MP4 or WMV.

 

Wage & Hour Guide for Employers AppWe’d like to share some news with retail employers: Epstein Becker Green has released a new version of its Wage & Hour Guide for Employers app, available without charge for Apple, Android, and BlackBerry devices.

Following is from our colleague Michael Kun, co-creator of the app and leader of our Wage and Hour group:

We have just updated the app, and the update is a significant one.

While the app originally included summaries of federal wage-hour laws and those for several states and the District of Columbia, the app now includes wage-hour summaries for all 50 states, as well as D.C. and Puerto Rico.

Now, more than ever, we can say that the app truly makes nationwide wage-hour information available in seconds. At a time when wage-hour litigation and agency investigations are at an all-time high, we believe the app offers an invaluable resource for employers, human resources personnel, and in-house counsel.

Key features of the updated app include:

  • New summaries of wage and hour laws and regulations are included, including 53 jurisdictions (federal, all 50 states, the District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico)
  • Available without charge for iPhone, iPad, Android, and BlackBerry devices
  • Direct feeds of EBG’s Wage & Hour Defense Blog and @ebglaw on Twitter
  • Easy sharing of content via email and social media
  • Rich media library of publications from EBG’s Wage and Hour practice
  • Expanded directory of EBG’s Wage and Hour attorneys

If you haven’t done so already, we hope you will download the free app soon.  To do so, you can use these links for iPhone, iPad, Android, and BlackBerry.

The San Francisco Board of Supervisors passed two ordinances, known colloquially as the Retail Workers Bill of Rights, to regulate: (1) employee hours, scheduling, and retention; and (2) treatment of part-time employees at certain standardized retail establishments in San Francisco.  The ordinances, San_Franciscocodified as: Hours and Retention Protections for Formula Retail Employees Ordinance, San Francisco Police Code Article 33F, and Fair Scheduling and Treatment of Formula Retail Employees, San Francisco Police Code Article 33G, went into effect earlier this year.  Enforcement by the City of San Francisco’s Office of Labor Standards Enforcement (“OLSE”) began July 3, 2015. The new laws, as amended on July 7, 2015, apply to “Formula Retail Establishments” with at least 40 retail sales establishments worldwide and 20 or more employees in San Francisco. The term “Formula Retail Establishment” applies to retail sales or service establishments that maintain standardized physical features such as an array of merchandise, decor and color scheme, uniform apparel, signage, trademarks, etc.  Examples of such establishments include chain and big box stores, financial service businesses, movie theaters, and chain and fast food restaurants. Covered retail establishments must comply with the following requirements:

  1. Before hiring new employees, offer additional work hours (either in writing or by posting the offer in a conspicuous location) to qualified part-time employees who have performed similar work for the covered retail establishment, and afford those part-time employees 3 days to accept the offered hours;
  2. Provide new employees with a “good faith” written estimate of the number of scheduled shifts per month and the days and hours of those shifts;
  3. Provide employees with their work schedules 2 weeks in advance, and provide “predictability pay” if schedules change with less than seven days’ advance notice;
  4. Provide pay for on-call shifts when the employee is not called into work, subject to exceptions;
  5. Provide part-time employees with the same starting hourly wage, access to time off, and eligibility for promotions as full-time employees who perform at the same level; and
  6. Provide for continued employment of all employees for a period of 90 days if the covered retail establishment changes ownership, subject to certain conditions.

Employees covered by the ordinances include any person, including temporary and seasonal personnel, who in a particular week performs at least 2 hours of work for a covered retail establishment within the geographical boundaries of the City and County of San Francisco and who qualifies for state minimum wage, or is scheduled for an on-call shift of at least 2 hours, regardless of whether the person actually reports for the on-call shift.  Covered retail establishments must also maintain and retain records of scheduling (including schedule changes and notices) for at least 3 years.

Covered retail establishments must post a notice at the workplace to inform covered employees of their rights under the new laws.  The OLSE has published the required poster and guidance in the form of Frequently Asked Questions and a Fact Sheet.  The OLSE is to prepare new versions of the poster and guidance to incorporate the changes required by the July 7, 2015 amendment to the ordinances.

Janitorial and security contractors of covered retail establishments must also comply with the ordinances.  Covered retail establishments must provide their janitorial and security contractors with a copy of the ordinances and include a provision in all service contracts for janitorial or security services requiring the contractor to comply with the ordinances.

Covered retail establishments should review their scheduling, on-call, and hiring practices to ensure compliance with the new ordinances.  Document retention policies and service contracts should also be reviewed for compliance.

My colleagues Michael S. Kun and Jeffrey H. Ruzal at Epstein Becker Green has a Wage and Hour Defense blog post that will be of interest to all retailers: “Proposed DOL Rule To Make More White Collar Employees Eligible For Overtime Pay.”Clock

Following is an excerpt:

More than a year after its efforts were first announced, the U.S. Department of Labor (“DOL”) has finally announced its proposed new rule pertaining to overtime. And that rule, if implemented, will result in a great many “white collar” employees previously treated as exempt becoming eligible for overtime pay for work performed beyond 40 hours in a workweek – or receiving salary increases in order that their exempt status will continue.

Read the full original post here.

As we reported, last November, voters in Massachusetts approved a law granting Massachusetts employees the right to sick leave, starting on July 1, 2015.  The law provides paid sick leave for employers with 11 or more employees and unpaid sick leave for employees with 10 or fewer employees. While the law set forth the basics, many of the details, which have differentiated the various sick leave laws across the country, were not previously specified (e.g., minimum increments of use, frontloading, documentation).  The Massachusetts Attorney General’s Office (“AGO”) has set forth proposed regulations to guide employers in implementing the upcoming sick leave law.

Some of the proposed regulations include:

  • To determine an employer’s size, the number of employees at all locations will be counted, not just those employees in Massachusetts. For example, if a company has 25 employees in New York and three employees in Massachusetts, the employer will be required to provide paid sick leave to the Massachusetts employees because the employer has 11 or more employees in total.
  • Employees may use sick leave in hourly increments. However, if the employer has to hire a replacement, and does so, the employer may charge the employee for the entire missed shift.
  • If an employer decides to pay employees for their accrued, unused sick leave at the end of the calendar year, the employer need only frontload 16 hours in the following calendar year (as opposed to all 40 hours the employee will receive that year).[1]
  • An employer may choose to frontload 40 hours of sick leave per year rather than tracking accrual rates throughout the year.
  • An employer may not request documentation about an employee’s need for leave until the employee has taken 24 consecutive hours of sick leave.
    • At that point, an employee may provide documentation in the form of a doctor’s note or a written statement evidencing the need to use sick leave.[2]
    • If leave is related to domestic violence, an employee may provide alternative documentation.
    • The employee may submit any of the above documentation in any form customarily used to communicate, including via text message, e-mail, or fax.
  • Employers must provide written notice to employees at the beginning of employment as to what constitutes a “calendar year” for accrual and use purposes.
  • Employers must post the notice of the Earned Sick Time Law in the workplace and provide a copy to all employees.

The AGO will be holding six public hearings throughout the state, including one in Boston on May 18, 2015, to entertain comments to the proposed regulations. The deadline for written comments, which may be submitted by mail or electronically, is June 10.  If you would like assistance in preparing any comments, please contact us. We will provide an update upon adoption of the regulations (whether in this form, or revised after the comment period).

[1] This is more employer-friendly than the New York City Earned Sick Time Act, which requires that 40 hours be frontloaded if an employer pays out sick leave at the end of the calendar year.

[2] The AGO will create a model form for this use, but such form has not been posted yet.

One day before the U.S. Department of Labor’s Family & Medical Leave Act (“FMLA”) same-sex spouse final rule took effect on March 27, 2015, the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas ordered a preliminary injunction in Texas v. U.S., staying the application of the Final Rule for the states of Texas, Arkansas, Louisiana, and Nebraska.  This ruling directly impacts employers within the retail industry who are located or have employees living in these four states.

Background

In United States v. Windsor, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down Section 3 of the Defense of Marriage Act (“DOMA”) as unconstitutional, finding that Congress did not have the authority to limit a state’s definition of “marriage” to “only a legal union between one man and one woman as husband and wife.”  Significantly, the Windsor decision left intact Section 2 of DOMA (the “Full Faith and Credit Statute”), which provides that no state is required to recognize same-sex marriages from other states.  Further to the President’s directive to implement the Windsor decision in all relevant federal statutes, in June 2014, the DOL proposed rulemaking to update the regulatory definition of spouse under the FMLA. The Final Rule is the result of that endeavor.

As we previously reported, the Final Rule adopts the “place of celebration” rule, thus amending prior regulations which followed the “place of residence” rule to define “spouse.”  For purposes of the FMLA, the place of residence rule determines spousal status under the laws where the couple resides, notwithstanding a valid out-of-state marriage license.   The place of celebration rule, on the other hand, determines spousal status by the jurisdiction in which the couple was married, thus expanding the availability of FMLA leave to more employees seeking leave to care for a same-sex spouse.

The Court’s Decision

Plaintiff States Texas, Arkansas, Louisiana, and Nebraska sued, arguing the DOL exceeded its authority by promulgating a Final Rule that requires them to violate Section 2 of the DOMA and their respective state laws prohibiting the recognition of same-sex marriages from other jurisdictions.  The Texas court ordered the extraordinary remedy of a preliminary injunction to stay the Final Rule pending a full determination of the issue on the merits.

The court first found that the Plaintiff States are likely to succeed on at least one of their claims, which assert that the Final Rule improperly conflicts with (1) the FMLA, which defines “spouse” as “a husband or wife, as the case may be” and which the court found was meant “to give marriage its traditional, complementarian meaning”; (2) the Full Faith and Credit Statute; and/or (3) state laws regarding marriage, which may be preempted by the Final Rule only if Congress intended to preempt the states’ definitions of marriage.

The court then held that the Final Rule would cause Plaintiff States to suffer irreparable harm because, for example, the Final Rule requires Texas agencies to recognize out-of-state same-sex marriages as valid in violation of the Texas Family Code.

Lastly, although finding the threatened injury to both parties to be serious, the court decided that the public interest weighs in favor of a preliminary injunction against the DOL.  The court found in favor of upholding “the stability and consistency of the law” so as to permit a detailed and in-depth examination of the merits.  Additionally, the court pointed out that the injunction does not prohibit employers from granting leave to those who request leave to care for a loved one, but reasoned that a preliminary injunction is required to prevent the DOL “from mandating enforcement of its Final Rule against the states” and to protect the states’ laws from federal encroachment.

What This Means for Employers

Although the stay of the Final Rule is pending a full determination of the issue on the merits, the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Obergefell v. Hodges likely will expedite and shape the outcome of the Texas court’s final ruling.  In Obergefell, the Supreme Court will address whether a state is constitutionally compelled under the Fourteenth Amendment to recognize as valid a same-sex marriage lawfully licensed in another jurisdiction and to license same-sex marriages.  Oral arguments in Obergefell are scheduled for Tuesday, April 28, 2015, and a final ruling is expected in late June of this year.

Before the U.S. Supreme Court decides Obergefell, however, employers in Texas, Arkansas, Louisiana and Nebraska are advised to develop a compliant strategy for implementing the FMLA—a task that may be easier said than done.  Complicating the matter is a subsequent DOL filing in Texas v. U.S. where the DOL contends that the court’s order was not intended to preclude enforcement of the Final Rule against persons other than the named Plaintiff States, and thus applies only to the state governments of the states of Texas, Arkansas, Louisiana, and Nebraska.

While covered employers are free to provide an employee with non-FMLA unpaid or paid job-protected leave to care for their same-sex partner (or for other reasons), such leave will not exhaust the employee’s FMLA leave entitlement and the employee will remain entitled to FMLA leave for covered reasons.  We recommend that covered employers that are not located and do not have employees living in one of the Plaintiff States amend their FMLA-related documents and otherwise implement policies to comport with the Final Rule, as detailed in EBG’s Act Now Advisory, DOL Extends FMLA Leave to More Same-Sex Couples.  Covered employers who are located or have employees living in one of the Plaintiff States, however, should confer with legal counsel to evaluate the impact of Texas v. U.S. and react accordingly, which may depend on the geographical scope of operations.

Our colleagues Adam Abrahms, Steven Swirsky, and Martin Stanberry at Epstein Becker Green have a Management Memo blog post that will be of interest to many of our readers: “NLRB Issues 13 Complaints Alleging McDonald’s and Franchisees Are Joint-Employers.”

Following is an excerpt:

While the General Counsel’s actions are alarming, particularly for businesses that rely upon a franchise model, the issuance of these complaints comes as little surprise because, as we reported in July of this year, the General Counsel had previously announced the decision to take this action and pursue claims of joint-employer liability. What is somewhat surprising about the announcement is its timing because the Board has not yet issued its decision in Browning-Ferris, 32-RC-109684, where the Board invited interested parties to opine in amici briefs on the benefits and drawbacks of the current standard relied upon by the Board to determine if two employers are a joint-employer and to propose a new standard and factors the Board should consider in such cases. Similar to its recent repudiation of Register Guard, the Board may use Browning-Ferris to moot the thirty years of joint-employer case law that followed TLI, Inc. 271 NLRB 798 (1984).

On the Wage & Hour Defense Blog, coauthor Steven Swirsky comments:

The National Labor Relations Board continues to focus on the changes in the nature of the employer-employee relationship, and the question of what entity or entities are responsible to a company’s employees for compliance with the range of federal, state, and local employment laws, including wage payment and overtime laws.

The Board’s General Counsel has now taken another big step in his effort to broaden the definition of “employer,” issuing a series of 13 complaints alleging that McDonald’s shares responsibility for franchisees’ employees. At the same time, the Board is poised to answer the question of whether the long standing test that the NLRB has relied on for more than 30 years to determine joint employer status should be replaced with a broader definition, and if so what it should be.

Read the full original post here.

Regarding the Supreme Court’s Integrity Staffing Solutions v. Busk opinion, issued today, our colleague Michael Kun at Epstein Becker Green has posted “Supreme Court Holds That Time Spent in Security Screening Is Not Compensable Time” on one of our sister blogs, Wage & Hour Defense.

Following is an excerpt:

In order to prevent employee theft, some employers require their employees to undergo security screenings before leaving the employers’ facilities. That is particularly so with employers involved in manufacturing and retail sales, who must be concerned with valuable merchandise being removed in bags, purses or jacket pockets.

Often in the context of high-stakes class actions and collective actions, parties have litigated whether time spent undergoing a security screening must be compensated under the Fair Labor Standards Act (“FLSA”). On December 9, 2014, a unanimous United States Supreme Court answered that question – no.

The Court’s decision in Integrity Staffing Solutions v. Busk may have a far-reaching practical and legal impact. Not only may it make more employers comfortable conducting security screenings of their employees, but it may bring an end to most class actions and collective actions filed against employers seeking compensation for employees’ time spent in such screenings.