After much anticipation, the Department of Labor finalized its new overtime-compensation rule on May 18.

Companies with a multistate workforce have the daunting task of staying abreast of legal and compliance issues on a number of fronts.

Federal wage and hour lawsuits have been on the upswing in Wisconsin and nationally for several years, aided in part by increased public awareness, union changes and the ease of which cases are proven.

Can’t afford to pay a summer associate? They typically earn $12 to $17 an hour, depending on the sophistication of the practice and whether they must pay for parking, according to Nancy Lochner, director of career services at Hamline University Law School in St. Paul, Minn.

For most employers, employee severance agreements are essential tools for ensuring that the end of an employment relationship doesn’t lead to litigation.

For years, employers have struggled with correctly classifying workers as employees or independent contractors.

Wage-and-hour lawsuits filed under the Fair Labor Standards Act have hit an all-time high, according to a new study of federal court caseloads.

In an effort to fend off an official investigation of its books, a major tobacco company hired a law firm to audit the classification of 5,000 workers.

Can an employer, faced with a purported class action under the Fair Labor Standards Act, avoid litigation by immediately offering a settlement to the sole plaintiff before a class is certified?

Can an employer, faced with a purported class action under the Fair Labor Standards Act, avoid litigation by immediately offering a settlement to the sole plaintiff before a class is certified?

The former manager of a Milwaukee assisted-living facility recouped unpaid wages and attorney fees in a recent Eastern District of Wisconsin case.

The wired world presents more options than ever for flexible work arrangements. Thanks to the march of mobile technology, attorneys and staff are able to take their offices on the go, working not just from the cubicle, but from the coffee shop, the beach or their own living rooms. But while technology redefines what’s meant by going to work, it can also create potential problems. Some important guidelines can help firm leaders decide when to allow people to work from home and when it’s better to go the traditional route.

The Supreme Court has ruled that sales representatives for pharmaceutical companies do not qualify for overtime pay under federal law, a big victory for the drug industry.

Pharmaceutical companies did not violate federal wage and hour law by classifying their sales representatives as administrative employees ineligible for overtime, the 7th Circuit has ruled.

The justices of the U.S. Supreme Court this week tackled the question of whether pharmaceutical representatives who educate, entertain and pitch their products to doctors are salespeople, a decision that will determine whether they are entitled to overtime pay under the Fair Labor Standards Act.

At the U.S. Supreme Court, 2011 was a remarkable year – not just for the things the justices did, but for the cases they agreed to take up in the near future.

The U.S. Supreme Court will decide whether federal courts should give deference to the Secretary of Labor’s interpretation of the Fair Labor Standards Act’s outside sales exemption to make pharmaceutical sales representatives eligible for overtime.

Boston MA - The U.S. Supreme Court's recent ruling that oral complaints about workplace conditions made to a company supervisor are covered by the anti-retaliation provision of the Fair Labor Standards Act has employment lawyers taking notice.

Employees in Wisconsin no longer need to file a written complaint to come within the anti-retaliation provisions of the Fair Labor Standards Act. The U.S. Supreme Court held March 22 that an oral complaint suffices, provided it is “sufficiently clear and detailed for a reasonable employer to understand it, in light of both content and context, as an assertion of ...

PORTAGE, Wis. (AP) — The Supreme Court says employees don’t have to write down complaints about illegal workplace conditions to receive retaliation protection from their employers. The high court made the ruling Tuesday. Kevin Kasten had complained to Saint-Gobain Performance Plastics that time clocks at the Portage plant were in the wrong place. The company fired him and moved the ...

For those of us here in Wisconsin who swear by the health benefits of breast milk, 2010 was a good year.

Washington - The Fair Labor Standards Act protects workers who complain about workplace conditions from facing retaliation from their supervisors. But do those protections apply when the employee protests verbally, as opposed to filing a written complaint?