Duff on Hospitality Law

On Tuesday, November 22nd, a United States District judge in Texas issued a preliminary injunction that blocks the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) from implementing a controversial rule that would have expanded overtime protections from going into effect, at least for now. The pending regulations were scheduled to go into effect on December 1, 2016 and would have more than doubled the salary level required for employees classified as exempt under the “White Collar” exemptions. The Department of Labor estimated if the new regulations went in to effect more than 4 million workers would now be eligible for overtime. The salary level is currently $455 per week or $23,660 per year. The new regulations would have increased that amount to $913 per week or $47,476 per year.

When we last visited this topic, the proposed regulations revising the overtime exemptions were still very new. The regulations are due to go into effect on December 1 of this year. There has been legislation introduced to stop them from being implemented and court cases are pending. This article will remind you of the obligations, answer some additional questions that keep coming up and will bring you up to date on the efforts to stop the regulations from going into effect.

The good news is the long awaited rule on overtime has arrived – finally. The proposed rule goes into effect on December 1, 2016. The quick summary is the changes aren’t quite as bad as everyone feared. The long summary is below. We have broken out the rules into specific talking points to try and make them easier to digest. This does not erase the entire prospect of heartburn, however. The Department of Labor has also developed a page of Questions and Answers on the new rule, which includes a comparison between the old rule and the new rule.