Firm's Annual Workplace Class Action Litigation Report Noted in Inc. Magazine

Reference of the firm's 2006 Annual Workplace Class Action Litigation Report of 2005 trends is noted in the January 2007 issue of Inc. Magazine in the article "Do Your Employees Qualify For Overtime? - The answer may surprise you." The article notes: "She's well compensated. He's a manager. They're all on salary. These are some of the common reasons employers give to explain why they do not pay their employees overtime. But in many cases these reasons are not legally valid. That's something business owners have been learning the hard way. Indeed, the number of overtime lawsuits has exploded over the past couple of years. In 2005, class-action suits involving wages surpassed discrimination cases as the most widespread work force class action, according to a recent study by Chicago law firm Seyfarth Shaw. During the same year, the Department of Labor collected $166 million in back wages, mostly overtime pay--a 26 percent increase from 2001. ... The litigation has been fueled, in large part, by changes to the Fair Labor Standards Act in 2004. The Department of Labor updated the antiquated act, which first came into effect in 1938, in order to eliminate references to outdated jobs (think straw bosses and keypunch operators) and establish guidelines for contemporary workers. Among other changes, the agency determined that employees must make at least $455 a week to be ineligible for overtime pay, a sharp increase over the previous benchmark of $250 a week. As a result, 1.3 million workers suddenly qualified for extra pay, according to the DOL. ... To stay out of trouble, consider paying a labor attorney a few thousand dollars to vet your pay policies. And take a hard look at what your employees do all day, regardless of their job descriptions. If they don't make many independent decisions, there's a good chance they qualify for overtime pay. Also, think twice about offering flextime to hourly workers. If an employee with a flexible schedule works more than 40 hours in a given week, regardless of how much he or she worked the previous or following weeks, that person may qualify for overtime. Of course, you might not like what you discover. And correcting overtime mistakes isn't easy. Workers will probably ask about back wages when they find out they are eligible for overtime. To avoid a pricey lawsuit and bad press, some companies bite the bullet and hand over two years of back wages and pay overtime going forward."