Category: Paychecks & Work
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Four staffing agencies and a Newton hotel owe $875,234 for wage theft affecting about 421 workers
Temp work runs through layers. A staffing agency hires the worker, a client company gets the labor, and the person actually doing the job can end up with two businesses above them and no clear answer about which one owes what. Massachusetts Attorney General Andrea Joy Campbell announced citations on August 5 against four staffing…
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$200,000 goes to a nurse fired instead of reassigned to an open job
Sutter Roseville Medical Center had a decision in front of it. A staff nurse with a disability had asked her managers for an accommodation, and a lateral move into a position that was already open was one way to give her one. Federal investigators concluded the hospital would not consider any accommodation at all and…
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143 Michigan restaurant workers will receive $515,857 after investigators say overtime timecards were destroyed
Federal investigators say four Detroit-area coney island restaurants ran payroll off two sets of timecards for the same workers. One set counted the first 40 hours of the week; the other tracked everything past 40, the hours federal law prices at time and a half. That second set was regularly destroyed, investigators allege, but the…
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DC Water pays nearly $217,000 over an older worker replaced by someone younger
He was an experienced member of the human resources department at the water utility serving the nation’s capital — by the federal government’s account, a high performer with no warnings in his file. In September 2023 he was fired anyway, and government lawyers said the person hired into his place was substantially younger and less…
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Hundreds of truck drivers will share $2.22 million after fuel and toll deductions sometimes erased entire paychecks
Picture finishing a full week of container runs out of Newark and opening the pay statement to a negative number — not a small check, but a bill, because deductions for fuel, tolls, parking, insurance, and truck repairs had swallowed the entire week’s gross pay. New Jersey investigators say that is exactly what happened in…
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Goodyear’s Fayetteville closure will eliminate about 1,750 jobs by the end of 2027
A factory closing over more than a year can squeeze a community long before the final shift ends. Goodyear has approved the permanent closure of its Fayetteville, North Carolina, tire plant, a plan that includes roughly 1,750 job reductions and is expected to be substantially complete by the end of 2027. The long runway gives…
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Gig income is taxable without a 1099, but the QBI deduction is now permanent
A missing Form 1099 does not make app earnings, cash jobs or other gig income tax-free. The IRS requires workers to report taxable gig income regardless of the payment method or whether an information form arrives. At the same time, eligible independent workers can continue using the qualified business income deduction because current federal law…
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For covered workers, a 50-hour week still earns overtime even if next week is short
A covered, nonexempt employee who works 50 hours in one workweek generally earns 10 hours of overtime, even if the next week contains only 30 hours. Federal law treats each workweek separately and does not let an employer average the two weeks into 40 hours apiece. Payroll schedules can group weeks on one check, but…
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Earning $684 a week alone does not make a salaried worker overtime-exempt
A salary of $684 a week clears one federal threshold used for several white-collar overtime exemptions, but it does not settle the question. Most executive, administrative and professional exemptions require the employer to satisfy a salary-level test, a salary-basis test and a duties test. A job title or a fixed paycheck cannot replace the missing…
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VitalSource will pay $150,000 after firing a hospitalized worker who sought disability leave
Running out of paid leave does not automatically end an employer’s duty to consider disability accommodation. VitalSource Technologies has agreed to pay $150,000 in back pay and compensatory damages after a federal investigation found reasonable cause to believe it fired a hospitalized employee who had requested leave for her absence and recovery. The agreement focuses…
