Assignment task: Purpose
To assess your ability to:
- Discuss the Equal Pay Act and other laws that impact wages, hours, and pay equity.
- Define the elements of pay discrimination.
- Discuss ERISA and how it regulates benefit plans.
- Analyze ERISA rules for pension plans.
- Discuss workers compensation benefits.
- Analyze an employment situation in order to provide recommendations concerning the application of employment laws to employers and/or employees.
Action Items:
Wages/Pay Equity. A compensation consultant recommends that a restaurant do the following. Would implementing any of the consultant's suggestions create legal problems? Which suggestions? What problems? Should the restaurant find a new consultant?
- Keep accurate wage and hour records and retain them for at least a year;
- Pay table servers minimum wage and require them to share their tips with other employees;
- Require employees to pay for their own uniforms and deduct the cost from their paychecks;
- Increase productivity by reducing meal periods (unpaid) from one hour to 20 minutes and eliminating all other breaks;
- Since it should only take half an hour to clean up after the restaurant closes, don't pay employees for any more time than that;
- Require that any non-exempt, full-time employees who work over 8 hours a day take that time off later in the same work week;
- Don't worry about paying overtime to shift supervisors because they are paid a weekly salary;
- To prevent work from interfering with their studies, limit minors (under 16) to no more than 8 hours a day during the school year.
- References