Do you remember all of those new Department of Labor investigators the Obama administration began hiring back in 2009?  Well the DOL has added 350 to their ranks as of April 2012 and they have begun targeting industries with surprise on-site inspections for independent contractor misclassification, FLSA and other labor code violations. The DOL has [...]

Join us for a discussion of the unprecedented interagency coordination and enforcement efforts and recently enacted legislation affecting worker classification in 2012. A link to the presentation, including all slides and statistics, can be found here. In the past eighteen months there has been unprecedented coordination between state agencies, the IRS and the Department of Labor; a [...]

One size does not fit all when it comes to independent contractor compliance. In two recent cases, “virtual” at-home call center workers claim that their employers, Apple and AT&T, devised illegal schemes to avoid paying them as employees.  Although questioned for some time, independent contractor compliance appears to no longer have the easy fix of using [...]

Eight months ago, a class of temporary workers claiming to have been misclassified as exempt from overtime wages, filed a multimillion-dollar lawsuit against California IT network giant Juniper Networks and its staffing provider PrO Unlimited. Last month, the parties notified the court that the case has been settled for an undisclosed amount. Lazarin et al. v. PrO [...]

Wouldn’t it be nice to find competent workers, convince them to work for your company and never have to fill out any more paperwork than an employment contract, a check and a 1099? If only. As of June 5th, add West Virginia to the existing 14 states which require independent contractor new hire reporting (once [...]

The DOL Fall 2011 Regulatory Plan statement provides an update on the roll-out of their “Plan, Prevent, Protect” initiative. Plan/Prevent/Protect Compliance Strategy The Department has already published several regulatory actions toward the completion of requirements that employers develop programs to address specific issues of worker protection, security, and equity. Some of these issues have included [...]

The numbers are in: 227,000 jobs were added in February.  But delve deeper and they reveal both a fundamental shift in the American workforce and many missed opportunities during the early stages of this economic recovery.  Margins are significant and opportunities for establishing new competitive advantages abound.  Some companies have taken the initiative, but in [...]

There’s a new sheriff in town, and she’s not playing around. Late last month, California Labor Commissions Julie A. Su expressed her excitement over the creation of a new Criminal Investigations Unit (CIU), tasked with “leveling the playing field for California employers by raising the stakes for those who underpay, underbid and under-report” in violation [...]

Current polls show President Obama beating both frontrunners in the race for the Republican presidential nomination by a healthy margin.[i]  So what would ‘four more years’ mean for the future of your contingent workforce? The White House has made no illusions in this time of tight fiscal policy and restricted agency spending.  They are putting [...]

California was one of the first states to enter into an information sharing agreement with the IRS regarding worker classification audits.  In fact, California is one of the only states to have two such agreements with the IRS – one is with the Franchise Tax Board and the other is with the Employment Development Department [...]