Chapter 14 Fair Labor Standards Act FLSA federal law adopted to eliminate unfair methods of compensation and labor conditions injurious to the health and efficiency of workers Mandates min wage one and one half pay for overtime work equal pay for equal work and restrictions on child labor FLSA requires employers involved in interstate commerce pay employees at least the min wage set by Congress States may have a min wage higher than Congress FL 7 79 hr Exempt from min wage requirement employers with less than 500 000 in annual sales any tipped employee Manager can take part of employee s pay if guests walk out so long as employee still makes min wage over a 1 week period 7 consecutive days 168 consecutive hours Employer can credit a percentage of the tips against the hourly min wage requirement Up to 59 of the min wage could be replaced by tips Tip pooling among tipped employees is permitted for purposes of the employer utilizing the tip credit to reduce an employee s pay below min wage States that do not allow tip credits to reduce the min wage an employer must pay California Washington Oregon Nevada Alaska Montana and Minnesota Required to pay employees for anything that benefits them or your business garbage pick up on a road adopted by company butcher seminar 40 of all Civil cases are employment cases 20 have retaliatory discharge Youth min wage 85 of the federal min wage Only applies to employees between the ages of 16 and 19 and only for the first 90 days of employment consecutive days not work days Thereafter employer must pay min wage Exemption to the overtime and min wage requirements executive administrative and professional employees Time worked time spent on job related tasks coffee and snack breaks meetings to discuss daily operations problems rest periods of 20 mins or less travel from job site to job site or to customers required training and clearing a cash register or totaling receipts after regular work hours Equal Pay Act EPA requires that men and women who do the same job or jobs that require equal skill effort and responsibility be paid the same or according to the same pay schedule Known as equal pay for equal work Comparable worth jobs requiring different skills and responsibilities that have equal value to the employer FLSA provides a min age for employees restricts the number of hours younger employees can work and limits the tasks they can perform Min work age is 14 Child Labor Goal is to provide young people with nonhazardous working conditions and hours that do not interfere with their schooling or health During school year employee who is 14 or 15 cannot work more than 18 hours a week not more than 3 hours on a school day and cannot begin work earlier than 7 00 am or end later than 7 00 pm No fed law restricts number of hrs 16 17 yr old can work During vacation employee can work up to 8 hours a day but cannot exceed 40 hours a week Work day cannot begin earlier than 7 00 am or end later than 9 00 pm An employee whose rights under the FLSA have been violated has two options in pursuing the case 1 File a claim with the Wage and Hour Division of the United States Department of Labor or 2 commence a lawsuit against the employer seeking damages and attorney fees Family and Medical Leave Act FMLA addresses the problem with obtaining time off from work to care for sick children spouse or parent only Entitles eligible employees to take up to 12 weeks of unpaid leave per year for childbirth adoption foster placement or to care for a child spouse or parent who has a serious health condition or for the employee s own serious health situation To be eligible an employee must have been employed for at least 12 months before the leave commences and have worked at least 1 250 hours during the 12 month period immediately prior to the leave To be covered employers must carry on their payroll 50 or more employees Upon returning from the leave an employee must be reinstated to the position held before the leave or to a comparable position with equivalent pay benefits and other terms of employment If upon return from a leave the employee is unable to perform the tasks of his job the employer is not obligated to reinstate him to that job At will employment employer can fire an employee for any reason or no reason at all as long as it is not for discriminatory reasons An employer cannot discriminate against workers on the basis of race skin color religion gender pregnancy national origin disability age if at least 40 or union membership Protected classes Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 outlaws most grounds for discrimination Title VII outlaws intentional discrimination based on race color religion gender or national origin disparate treatment discrimination and involves neutral practices that result often unintentionally in unequal treatment disparate impact discrimination Title VII covers employers with 15 or more employees Back pay the difference between the amount of money an employee would have earned in the absence of discrimination and the amount of money the employee earned as the victim of discrimination Compensatory damages include back pay future monetary losses emotional pain and suffering mental anguish and other nonmonetary losses Punitive damages is only awarded in circumstances in which the employee can show that the employer engaged in illegal discrimination with malice or reckless indifference to the federally protected rights of the employee A bona fide occupational qualification BFOQ a job qualification that legally discriminates on the basis of race religion national origin or gender because 1 excluded classes cannot perform the job effectively 2 such inability is factually supported and 3 the job classification is reasonably necessary for the normal operation of the business Ex hiring only women to model women s makeup or women s bathing suits BFOQ is not a defense to a claim of racial discrimination Business necessity may relieve an employer of liability for disparate impact unintentional discrimination Business necessity a criterion for job applicants that has an obvious relationship to the job Ex speaking fluent English for a person with a job requiring communication with English speaking people Job applicants from other countries may not meet this job requirement They can for that reason be excluded from consideration An employer can defend against a claim of discriminatory firing by establishing a legitimate nondiscriminatory reason for