Breakfast Briefing: Keeping up with Wage and Hour Law: How Recent Developments May Impact Your Organization

Wage and hour issues consistently make headlines and are a source of potential liability for employers.  The majority of class and collective actions filed in state and federal courts continue to be wage-hour cases.  In addition, the Department of Labor’s budget has increased, providing the DOL with more resources to investigate a company’s wage-hour practices.  What’s more, the DOL is seeking to revise the regulations to the Fair Labor Standards Act to make it more difficult to classify certain employees as exempt.  Even if a company’s policies are lawful, defending a class or collective action or responding to a DOL audit can cost hundreds of thousands of dollars, if not more.   

Compounding these changes are court decisions that have altered the legal landscape for wage and hour claims.  For example, the U.S. Supreme Court recently ruled that post-shift security inspections of employees leaving the workplace are not compensable as work time.  The broader implications of this decision are important for employers to understand.   As wage-hour law continues to evolve and change, these developments may impact your organization.

Please join Seyfarth Shaw to learn about various strategies that companies should explore when facing litigation, ways in which companies can minimize their legal risks, and how recent developments in the law shape these considerations.  During the breakfast briefing, we will discuss:

• What pre-shift and post-shift activities are compensable following recent Supreme Court rulings?
• Should employers try to avoid class and collective actions with arbitration programs involving class and collective action waivers?
• How “professional” does an employee need to be in order to be properly classified as exempt?
• How are the DOL’s upcoming revisions to the exempt status regulations likely to affect employee classifications?    
• Does mooting a case remain a viable litigation strategy after recent court decisions?
• Is the definition of "employee" evolving?  

Seyfarth Shaw LLP is an approved provider of Illinois Continuing Legal Education (CLE) credit. This seminar is approved for 1.5 hours of CLE credit. The CLE certificate issued following the event is transferrable toward HR Certification Institute (HRCI) recertification.

To register for this Breakfast Briefing click here