The U.S. Department of Labor announced new action regarding how American workers and employers will benefit from the protections and relief offered by the Emergency Paid Sick Leave Act and Emergency Family and Medical Leave Expansion Act, both part of the Families First Coronavirus Response Act (FFCRA). The Department’s Wage and Hour Division (WHD) posted a temporary rule issuing regulations pursuant to this new law, effective today, April 1, 2020.

 FFCRA helps the United States combat the workplace effects of COVID-19 by reimbursing American private employers that have fewer than 500 employees with tax credits for the costs of providing employees with paid leave for specified reasons related to COVID-19. The law enables employers to keep their workers on their payrolls, while at the same time ensuring that workers are not forced to choose between their paychecks and the public health measures needed to combat the virus. WHD administers the paid leave provisions of the Emergency Paid Sick Leave Act and Emergency Family and Medical Leave Expansion Act.

The Families First Coronavirus Response Act will become law on April 2, 2020 and remain in effect until December 31, 2020. It applies to virtually all employers with 500 employees or fewer, although small businesses with 50 or fewer employees may later be exempted if compliance could force the employer out of business. All employees are eligible regardless of their length of employment.

Qualifying for Paid Sick Leave – An employee is eligible if he/she is: 

• subject to a federal, state or local quarantine or isolation order related to COVID-19;

• advised by a health care provider to self-quarantine due to COVID-19 concerns; 

• experiencing COVID-19 symptoms and seeking medical diagnosis; 

• caring for an individual subject to a federal, state or local quarantine or isolation order or advised by a health care provider to self-quarantine due to COVID-19 concerns;

• caring for the employee’s child if the child’s school or place of care is closed or the child’s care provider is unavailable due to public health emergency; or 

• experiencing any other substantially similar condition specified by the Secretary of Health and Human Services in consultation with the Secretary of the Treasury and the Secretary of Labor.

Benefit – Eligible employees are entitled to 80 hours of paid sick leave at the employee’s regular rate of pay or two-thirds the employee’s regular rate to care for another person. Healthcare and emergency responder employers may elect to be exempt. Employees may not be required to use other paid leave first before using paid sick leave under the Act. Tax credits applicable to the employer’s portion of Social Security taxes are available to employers to reimburse the wages paid to employees taking emergency paid sick leave. 

Cap on Paid Leave – Paid sick leave wages are limited to $511 per day up to $5,110 total per employee for their own use and to $200 per day up to $2,000 total to care for others. Paid sick leave will not carry over to the following year and may be in addition to any paid sick leave currently provided by employers.

Calculating Rate of Pay – Employees who work a part-time or irregular schedule are entitled to be paid based on the average number of hours the employee worked for the six months prior to taking paid sick leave. Employees who have worked for less than six months prior to leave are entitled to the average number of hours the employee would normally be scheduled to work over a two-week period. 

Young & Newsom, P.C. shareholder Jeremi K. Young was honored to serve as moderator and speaker at the 2017 National Employment Lawyers Association conference entitled Litigating Wage & Hour Cases: Challenges and Opportunities, held in Silver Spring, Maryland.  Along with co-presenters Jessica Bressler and Raymond Wendell, Young spoke on Representing Workers in Motor Carrier Act Cases. The Motor Carrier Act exempts certain employees from being eligible for overtime pay under the Fair Labor Standards Act. 

This panel discussed (1) the basic structure of the Motor Carrier Act and the Technical Corrections Act and recent decisions concerning which party has the burden of proof at trial; (2) what courts are saying in mixed fleet cases; (3) the interplay between potentially conflicting Department of Transportation and Department of Labor regulations; (4) strategies to counter the MCA exemption; and (5) discovery strategies and sources of proof for MCA cases going to trial, and much more.

The Amarillo adult entertainment club known as The Jungle has paid $35,000 ($21,000 in unpaid wages and other damages and $14,000 in legal fees) to three of its former dancers. The dancers claimed that the club illegally classified them as independent contractors. Dancers were required to work for tips alone and were not paid federally required minimum and overtime wages.

The dancers were represented by the Amarillo law firm Young & Newsom, PC. According to shareholder Jeremi Young, "these clubs are notorious for taking advantage of employees by failing to pay minimum wage and instead forcing their employees to work for only tips, which violates federal law." "Dancers, disk jockeys, bouncers, and other workers at these clubs are employees, not contract labor and are entitled be paid at least $7.25 for ever hour worked, plus overtime, regardless of what tips they may receive," said Young.

The Jungle denied liability.

On September 14, 2016, Young & Newsom, PC attorneys Jeremi Young and Collin Wynne won a jury verdict in favor of their clients who worked for oilfield service company Crest Pumping Technologies, a subsidiary of Nine Energy Services.

The employees, Scot Carley and Brandon Brown, worked for Crest as Cementers in west Texas. Crest paid their cementers a salary and certain bonuses, but failed to pay them overtime compensation for hours worked over 40 each week. Crest asserted numerous exemptions in its attempts to justify why it failed to follow federal overtime laws. A federal jury unanimously rejected each of Crest's defenses, found that Carley and Brown were unlawfully denied overtime pay, and determined that each of them worked 80 hours per week (40 overtime hours), on average, during each week they were employeed. The federal judge who presided over the case will determine how much in unpaid overtime wages, liquidated damages, and attorneys' fees Crest will be required to pay.

Oil and gas service providers commonly violate federal overtime laws in numerous ways. Click here for an explanation of some of the more common violations.