As an employer, one of your most important responsibilities is properly classifying workers as either employees or independent contractors. Properly classified independent contractors can save your enterprise money, especially in the form of saved payroll taxes and employee benefits. On the other hand, misclassifying workers as independent contractors can be extremely costly. Later, we'll talk a little about how to protect yourself from misclassification lawsuits.

Consider the case of home improvement leader Lowe’s Home Centers. Last January, Lowes agreed to pay out $10 million in a settlement agreement of a class action suit brought by home improvement and installation workers who were improperly classified as independent contractors. The court found that the workers should have been classified as employees due to the fact that “Lowes had the right to control, and did control, all aspects of installation jobs.”

Aside from keeping up with changing federal labor rules, it's crucial to stay up to date with local rules and regulations. One big example is the state of California, with complex time and attendance rules that are often difficult to understand and constantly changing. In this post, we'll review California Labor Code’s Meal Periods provision.

Meal Periods

In 2012, a few important changes were made to California’s Meal Periods provision. According to California Labor Code Section 512:

An employer may not employ an employee for a work period of more than five hours per day without providing the employee with a meal period of not less than thirty minutes, except that if the total work period per day of the employee is no more than six hours, the meal period must be waived by mutual consent of both the employer and the employee. A second meal period of not less than thirty minutes is required if an employee works more than ten hours per day, except that if the total hours worked is no more than 12 hours, the second meal period may be waived by mutual consent of the employer and employee only if the first meal period was not waived.

What does this mean?

The task before you is huge. You need to stay up-to-date with the latest employment laws. Now you might have operations in any of fifty states, or overseas in the European Community, Eastern Europe, or in Asia or Australia. In this article, we'll focus on U.S. Federal work and labor laws.  

Below we've compiled a list of free resources that should be helpful.

The Macguires and Developing Tradition

 The origins of Labor Day can be found in the 1800s during America’s Industrial Revolution. The average American might have started working as early as six years old and was forced to work 12 hours a day, seven days a week to support themselves and their families. These hardships led to the rise of labor unions and a collective desire for change.

Rules that try to protect pregnant female workers are more than confusing. There are conflicting and often overlapping laws and rules at the federal level. But worse, each state has its own rules and protections, or lack thereof. So if you are operating in multiple states keeping track of all this, and changes to state laws, is not a trivial task.

Worse yet, not complying with these laws is getting more expensive. The number of legal claims filed each year is increasing, and  continues to increase. The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) reported that claims increased 71% between 1992 and 2011.

However, The Department of Labor is here to save the day!