Compliance Corner

Adhering to the “plain and ordinary” language of the state’s overtime statute and related regulations, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court has held that inside sales employees paid on a 100-% commission basis are also entitled to pay for overtime hours worked and premium pay for work on Sundays. Sullivan v. Sleepy’s LLC, 2019 Mass. LEXIS 244 (Mass. May 8, 2019).

Non-lawyers may no longer represent employers in unemployment compensation hearings in Kentucky, the Kentucky Court of Appeals has ruled. Nichols v. Kentucky Unemployment Commission, et al., No. 2017-CA-001156-MR, 2019 Ky. App. LEXIS 73 (Ky Ct. App. Apr. 26, 2019).

Florida has enacted legislation (Senate Bill 7012) that adds vaping to its ban on smoking in enclosed indoor workplaces. 

The Dallas, Texas City Council passed an ordinance requiring employers to provide paid sick leave beginning as early as August 1, 2019.  However, whether the ordinance will go into effect is uncertain.

The state of Arkansas has amended the state minimum wage statute in numerous areas impacting employers. 

Last month, a federal judge ordered the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) to take all necessary steps to comply with changes to EEO-1 data collection obligations first announced in 2016 and stayed in 2017. These reinstated obligations increase the amount of information employers are required to collect and report to the EEOC, including pay data called Component 2 data. Component 2 data includes wage and hour data for employees broken down by race/ethnicity and gender. On May 3, 2019, the EEOC announced that it will collect both 2017 and 2018 Component 2 data from covered EEO-1 filers by
September 30, 2019.