Wages on days of inclement weather

Closing operations due to inclement weather raises the question of compensation for employees.  A major factor to determine is if they are exempt or non-exempt employees.  To preserve an employees’ exempt status employers are prohibited from making deductions for absences caused by the employer.  You must assume that all your exempt employees’ were ready, willing and able to come to work and are unable to doc their pay.

Employers have no obligation for compensation to non-exempt employees’ under FLSA for days when the business operation is closed.  Employers’ only have to pay them for actual hours worked.  If the employer doesn’t communicate the closure to employees prior to their arrival they employer would be responsible to pay employees’ for time worked.

For more information or help in creating policies and procedures please contact StaffScapes at 303-466-7864 or visit our website at www.staffscapes.com.

Colorado Voting Requirements

Employee Entitlement to Vote During work hours - If the employee is engaged or employed on the day of the election for a period of 2 hours during the times the polls are open.  Eligible electors who are employed and paid by the hour shall receive their regular hourly wage during their absence.  The employer may specify the hours during which the employee may be absent but the hours shall be at the beginning or end of the workship, if the employee requests so.

EXCEPTIONS - If there are 3 or more hours between the time of opening and the time of closing of the pols during which the elector is not required to be on the job, the employer does not need to allow or pay for time off to vote.

References - Colorado Revised Statutes 1-7-102 (Employees Entitled to Vote)

Please contact StaffScapes if you have any question or for addtional information on different state voting requirements. 

Wal-Mart appears in the news again, this time in a more positive light in the New York Times.

In the article “FLY ON THE WAL”, Charles Platt goes under cover to find out what Wal-Mart is doing that is keeping their growth increasing and why people continue to want to work for this behemoth. The insight and contrary opinions that Mr. Platt gives concerning Wal-Mart’s continued employment law plight is refreshing.  There are no “big labor” complaints or threats here, only one man’s personal experience working undercover for Wal-Mart.

Mr. Platt does a very good job defending Wal-Mart’s driving forces, but in that he also explains some basic economic principles that our country is founded on. Too many people, mostly our politicians, forget these basic principles, and since Mr. Platt did such a good job explaining them, I quote him here:

“I found myself reaching an inescapable conclusion. Low wages are not a Wal-Mart problem. They are an industry-wide problem, afflicting all unskilled entry-level jobs, and the reason should be obvious.

In our free-enterprise system, employees are valued largely in terms of what they can do. This is why teenagers fresh out of high school often go to vocational training institutes to become auto mechanics or electricians. They understand a basic principle that seems to elude social commentators, politicians and union organizers. If you want better pay, you need to learn skills that are in demand.

The blunt tools of legislation or union power can force a corporation to pay higher wages, but if employees don’t create an equal amount of additional value, there’s no net gain. All other factors remaining equal, the store will have to charge higher prices for its merchandise, and its competitive position will suffer.”

See Also

• CHARLES PLATT GOES UNDERCOVER AT WAL-MART - New York Post
  Some people, usually community activists, loath Wal-Mart. Others, like the family of four struggling to make ends meet, are in love with the chain. I, meanwhile, am in awe of it. With more than 7…

The IRS recently published information about the non-taxability of unemployment benefits.

The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (or Stimulus Bill) has given individuals that are collecting unemployment benefits in 2009, the ability to exclude the first $2,400 of these benefits. The exclusion applies to each individual separately even for married couples filing. This exclusion applies only to benefits received in 2009, so this will not reduce the taxable wages for the 2008 year form 1040 that most people are filing currently. Further information can be found posted at the IRS website at the following address: http://www.irs.gov/newsroom/article/0,,id=205633,00.html.

The US Department of Labor has recently released their new smartphone application, and instead of explaining its advantages to employers, they state the reason for this app is so the employees do not have to rely on their employer’s records. What? Quoting DOL’s press release, “The first DOL application for smartphones is a timesheet to help employees independently track the hours they work and determine the wages they are owed… This information could prove invaluable during a Wage and Hour Division investigation” and “This new technology is significant because, instead of relying on their employer’s records, workers now can keep their own records.”

So my interpretation of the message the DOL is presenting is employers are no longer to be trusted keeping and recording time worked by their employees or to determine the wages they are owed. The current DOL Administration continues to show their bias against employers through this press release.

With that being said, I believe the actual application could be useful to employers and mobile employees. The application makes it pretty easy to track hours through a few pushes of buttons and at the end of the pay period can be emailed to the supervisor for approval, or for the purposes of the DOL to the employee’s attorney or DOL representative. Providing employers with a free application to improve recording time worked by employees would be very beneficial to the productivity of our country and economy. I do not know how the DOL thinks that economic recovery is going to happen by attacking employers at every turn. The DOL should have released the application with information going to employers getting “buy in” and stating the benefits to them provided by the app.