Articles Tagged with minimum wage

Today, New Jersey passed new law impoving wage and hour law protectionsNew Jersey’s Acting Governor Sheila Oliver signed an amendment to New Jersey’s  wage and hour laws that makes several extremely important improvements.

The amendment impacts several New Jersey laws, most importantly the Wage & Hour Law (“WHL”) and the Wage Payment Act (“WPA”).  The WHL is a statute that requires employers to pay employees who do not fall within an exemption minimum wage ($10 per hour in 2019) and time-and-half when they work more than 40 hours in any particular workweek.  The WPA is a law that requires employers to pay employees on time, and typically at least twice per month.

The amendment includes numerous new provisions, all of which go into effect immediately.  We have summarized some of the most significant changes below:

The Third Circuit Court of Appeals recently ruled that the Fair Labor Standards Act (“FLSA”) requires employers to pay employees for breaks during the workday that are no longer than 20 minutes long.

American Future Systems, which does business as Progressive Business Publications, publishes and sells business publications.  Progressive pays its sales representatives by the hour, plus bonuses based on how much they sell, for the time they are logged onto their work computers.  Most of Progressive’s employees are paid minimum wage.

Employees entitled to be paid for short breaksIn the past, Progressive allowed its employees to take two paid fifteen-minute breaks per day.  But in 2009, the company implemented what it called a “flex time” policy.  Under this policy, employees were permitted to log off of their computers whenever they wanted, for as long as they wanted, as long as they worked the agreed-upon total number of hours per week.  But under this new policy, Progressive did not pay employees if they logged off of their computers for more than 90 seconds.  In other words, it stopped paying them for breaks that lasted more than 90 seconds.

In a recent ruling, the Third Circuit Court of Appeals concluded that an arbitration agreement did not prohibit an exotic dancer from pursuing her overtime and minimum wage claims in court.

Exotic Dancer Can Bring Wage and Hour Claim in CourtAlissa Moon worked at the Breathless Men’s Club, which is in Rahway, New Jersey.  The Club treated her as an independent contractor, rather than an employee.  In fact, she had to agree to rent space from the Club where she could perform, and signed an “Independent Dancer Rental Agreement” which expressly states that she is an independent contractor.

That agreement also includes the following arbitration provision:

Minimum wage increases in NJ and NYStarting on January 1, 2017, the minimum wage has increased in New York State, New York City and New Jersey.  Specifically:

New Jersey

The minimum wage has increased from $8.38 to $8.44 per hour as a cost of living increase.  Under New Jersey law, there will be additional cost of living increases in future years.

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