The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has agreed to settle a wage and hour dispute with employees for a total of $11 million. Texas and federal laws require employers to make certain minimum payments to employees, including obeying minimum wage requirements...
Wage And Hour Laws
Understand your legal rights if you are denied overtime
Many Texans rely on overtime pay as a significant portion of their income. If an employee works beyond 40 hours in a workweek and gets paid hourly, they should receive overtime. Unfortunately, there are employers who will deprive workers of these wages by using...
Texas congressman pushes for better pay for border patrol agents
The Border Patrol Pay Security Act of 2019, introduced by Rep. Henry Cuellar from the 28th Congressional district of Texas, would improve pay for agents working for U.S. Customs and Border Protection. If approved, H.R. 2335 would allow border agents to regain access...
Proposed legislation could expose wage theft
Texas workers can face serious problems on the job, including violation of wage and hour laws. The Texas Workforce Commission has identified thousands of businesses that are engaged in wage theft each year. In some cases, workers are falsely classified as independent...
New overtime rule would make more people eligible
The Department of Labor has proposed a rule that would make a large number of people in the Houston area and across Texas available for overtime pay. The rule is still subject to a comment period of 60 days, but it would change the salary cap for non-management...
New overtime rule may be released
Workers in the Houston area may be under new guidelines regarding overtime in the future, but it is unclear how long the process will take. In May 2016, an overtime rule issued by the Department of Labor raised the minimum salary allowing so-called "white-collar"...
Employees might need court orders to collect back pay
Most employers in Texas make a good faith attempt to pay their workers correctly, but abuses do occur. Sometimes, employers fail to pay people what they are owed by ignoring overtime laws, miscalculating wages or applying the wrong wages. When these issues happen,...
Court rules about overtime pay for on-call shifts
Some employees in the Houston area who work on-call hours may be entitled to overtime pay they are not getting. A nurse in Ohio filed a claim against her workplace where she was required to be on call on alternating weekends. The hospital paid her regular rate. The...
Overtime rule overhaul delayed until March 2019
The United States Department of Labor is contemplating a change that could affect overtime laws for workers in Texas. The Fair Labor Standards Act has set a threshold salary below which workers must be paid overtime for working more than 40 hours in a week. The DOL...
Many workers turning to the gig economy
Gig work is becoming a bigger and bigger part of our world. According to some estimates, next year could see up to half of the U.S. workforce participating in the gig economy. Now, some might see gig work as something that just young workers do. However, participants...