Yes Virginia, There are a Lot of Labor and Employment Laws

Businesses Must Comply With State and Federal Laws

Employers, consider yourselves on notice – state laws matter when it comes to required pay and benefits for your employees. Many times, employers focus so much on complying with federal labor and employment laws, the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) in particular, they forget they need to be cognizant of the state and local laws in the states they do business. For example, many states provide employees more family, military and medical protected leave than the Family and Medical Leave Act, e.g., Indiana, Ohio, Minnesota, Wisconsin and California to name a few. Many states also have more generous laws related to overtime. The Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals recently reminded employers that just because you complied with federal law does not mean you can ignore state law.

In a recent case, a court found that employees at a plant in Wisconsin are precluded from recovering compensation under the FLSA for time spent donning and doffing safety gear because of an agreement on their behalf by their labor union trading such pay for a higher hourly pay rate. However, the analysis did not stop there. Wisconsin's wage and hour laws did not have a similar exclusion allowing unions and management to trade off the number of compensable hours against the wage rate. The judge opined that the state of Wisconsin is free to ignore the exception to the donning and doffing rule and provide employees more protections and benefits. He gave the following example to make his point:

"If a CBA [collective bargaining agreement] were to say: 'the workers will receive minimum wage under [the] FLSA, and not one cent more no matter what state law provides,' that would be ineffectual. So too would an agreement along the lines of: 'Because our base hourly rate is more than 150 percent of the minimum wage, we need not pay overtime rates under state law.'"

The judge went on to state, "States can set substantive rules that determine the effective net wage, even when a CBA plays a role." In the end, employers should remember FLSA Section 218(a) and other similar provisions in our federal labor and employment laws. Section 218(a) provides that nothing in the act "shall excuse noncompliance with any federal or state law or municipal ordinance establishing a minimum wage higher than the minimum wage established under [the FLSA] or a maximum workweek lower than the maximum workweek established in [the FLSA]." The states remain vested with the ability to grant greater benefits to its citizenry than our federal labor and employment laws and have done so since our nation's founding.

Please contact Paul Sweeney or another member of the Labor and Employment Group to discuss any questions you may have about how your company can ensure that you comply with both Federal and state labor and employment laws.

This publication is intended for general information purposes only and does not and is not intended to constitute legal advice.  The reader must consult with legal counsel to determine how laws or decisions discussed herein apply to the reader's specific circumstances.