When is December 1 not December 1? When two lawsuits challenge the new overtime rules.

On December 1, the Department of Labor’s new salary test for exempt employees is set to take effect, raising the salary level to qualify for certain white collar overtime exemptions from $455 per week to $913 per week.

That is, it is set to take effect if the two lawsuits filed yesterday don’t delay or outright stop the rules from taking effect.

Regulating social media at work is a Sisyphean task

According to Ajilon (as reported by BenefitsPro), American employees spend 140 per year (or an average of 33 minutes per day) on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and other social networks. Aggregated across all employees, the survey estimates this personal time costs employers $192.4 billion each year.

These numbers, however, merely beg the questions — (1) should you care and (2) what can you do about it?

11th circuit decision on dreadlocks and race asks big questions on the meaning of discrimination

In EEOC v. Catastrophe Management Solutions [pdf], the EEOC asked the 11th Circuit to determine whether banning an African-American employee from wearing dreadlocks constitutes race discrimination.

In a lengthy decision that discusses the very concept of race, the court answered the question “no”.

WIRTW #430 (the “third man” edition)

I have officially dubbed September Jack White Month in the Hyman house. I’ve never hid my love of all things Jack White. So, when the same month brings us the release of Jack White – Acoustic Recordings 1998-2016, a live Tonight Show performance, and my daughter performing in an all Jack White show (9/17 @ 2:30 and 9/25 @ noon, Brothers Lounge, mention this blog and your beers are on me) what's not to love?

Here’s what I read this week:

The NLRB is now basically creating unfair labor practices out of thin air

Image via forbes.com

Those that have been readers for awhile know of my dislike of the NLRB’s expansion of its doctrine of protected concerted activity (e.g., here and here).

The latest on the NLRB’s hit list: employee mis-classifications. The NLRB has concluded that an employer has committed an unfair labor practice and violated an employee’s section 7 rights by (mis)classifying its employees as independent contractors. Or so was the Board’s conclusion in its recently published General Counsel Advice Memorandum [pdf].

When it’s better to be lucky than good

Employers, sometimes it is better to be lucky than to be good. Case in point? Graves v. Dayton Gastroenterology [pdf], decided yesterday by the 6th Circuit.

Our employment discrimination laws are not a pretense

Last week, the 6th Circuit decided Richardson v. Wal-Mart Stores [pdf], a fairly run of the mill age discrimination lawsuit. The court decided that Richardson had failed to establish that Wal-Mart’s reason for firing her—a two-year history of disciplinary warnings—was pretext for age discrimination.

What caught my interest was not the decision itself, but instead the following statement made by the plaintiff’s attorney to Employment Law 360 about the decision:

The unfortunate reality is that anti-employment discrimination laws have largely become a pretense in the U.S. These laws remain on the books; but many courts rarely enforce them.