Businesses Face Decisions to Meet New Wage Rules

The article, “Businesses Face Decisions to Meet New Wage Rules,” featured in Daily  News, discusses the challenges employers will face to ensure they are in compliance with the newly revised regulations from U.S. Department of Labor concerning wage exemptions that go into effect on Dec. 1.

Courtney Leyes weighed in on the new rules and some of the challenges employers will encounter.

“Driving up wages and raising the middle class has been a goal of President Obama’s presidency, so these revisions were not a surprise,” said Courtney.

She believes the changes could have been more sweeping, referring to the fact that the Department of Labor chose not to change the duties test portion of the provisions.

“We think this will impact mid-level management employees in the retail, restaurant and hospitality industries,” Courtney said.

“The good news is employers do have six months to audit their payroll and look at employees hovering near the magic number – $47,500,” Courtney said.

Keeping up employee morale will also be a critical challenge, Courtney said.

“Many employees really don’t like punching a time clock, so there are a lot of PR considerations to have when companies are making these changes to try to roll out the news in a sensitive fashion,” she said.

Courtney pointed out that a group of employees, such as group of attorneys that all make $40,000, can band together and file a collective action against employers seeking back wages and punitive work-related damages.

To read the full article, please visit Daily News.