It’s ultimately your call, but if this contractor’s business model is only viable when he skirts the law and underpays his employees, then maybe he shouldn’t be in business. I also wouldn’t be surprised if he has a whole other set of books to account for the “extras,” but I’m cynical after a number of years in this…

Nope. In fact, retail managers were one of the major incentives in raising the salary threshold. The only retail employees who will be automatically exempt are certain commissioned employees.

It depends on what kind of sales you are talking about. Outside sales employees are exempt, as are certain “inside sales” employees. In order to qualify for the outside sales exemption one must be engaged in selling products or services outside of the establishment on a “regular and reoccuring” basis. There is no…

I would encourage to talk to your local Wage and Hour office ASAP. I don’t know what kind of contractor you work for, but I can guarantee they are making plenty of money and are happily pocketing what they save on labor costs. There is a reason government contracts are in such high demand, and it’s not because people…

Yup. Who wants to bet Dear Ms. Lauren was not the more attractive of the two?

There is also a difference between adults getting angry that the government doesn’t appear to be acting in the interests of the common people, and adults throwing temper tantrums because they didn’t bother to read the rules included in the board game and now they are angry they only advanced 15 spots instead of 17.

Well, it is a training philosophy, but there is a large body of research from zoologists, trainers, and behaviorists denouncing it. I did a LOT of research before getting my dog, and all of the information released by these groups in the past 10 to 15 years come down against dominance training. I would provide links,…

The problem, particularly in the first clip, is that everything he is doing only serves to worsen the problem. His techniques will not address the food aggression, but in fact make it more likely that the dog will lash out and ultimately have to be put down. He very clearly antagonizes her into biting, and then…

Not only were they based off wolves in captivity, the wolves used were from unrelated family groups. Basically, they were a bunch of strangers thrown together and told to “figure it out.” Wolf pack in the wild, in addition to not acting out due to the stress of captivity, are composed of family members and organize…

Here you go. A few examples of exactly the type of behavior people are talking about. Cesar Milan is a self-taught “expert” who develops his techniques based on research that has not only been discredited by trainers and behaviorists, but was also disavowed by the very scientist who first put for the “alpha/omega”…

Oh, I agree entirely. Like I said, I have seen a few people who institute their home country labor practices out of ignorance rather than malice, but they are the extreme minority. They also tend to be the instances where the problems in question are relatively minor. Crap like what is mentioned in this story is…

I once had someone tell me he only hired “illegals” because he didn’t want to have to pay overtime, and he didn’t have to worry about the law if they were illegal. I took great pleasure in explaining that labor law does not work like that.

The most common response, hands down, is “We are like family here! They like getting paid this way!” I find this explanation to be totally plausible. Really. :\

That’s true, but in all the years I have been working with labor law I have yet to see anyone use that, thank god. The last thing we need is employers finding another way to weasel out of paying employees what they are worth. I like to think that if more people were using it there would be a backlash and it might get…

I read everything here. I am also a specialist in Wage and Hour law which is how I know that his being in a “job training program” due to his disability does not inherently qualify him for the unpaid training programs. There honestly isn’t enough information in the article here to know whether or not he qualified for…

Unpaid training periods are generally illegal under federal labor law, with some very, very narrow exceptions. Any sort of training that is required by the employer and is done for the benefit of the job has to be paid at a rate not less than minimum wage. For training to be unpaid it must be outside regular work…

Fine. Let’s say they aren’t actually working 80 hours a week, though many of them certainly are, let’s put it closer to 60 hours. As is the case with most low-wage workers, these hours are most likely split between two jobs. That means they are either going directly from one work establishment to the next, or possibly…

Yes, but what you get in that case is the restaurant owner using one employee’s wages to supplement another employee’s wages, just to avoid dipping into their own pockets. Under U.S. law tips are entirely the property of the employee receiving them, something too few owners/managers want to acknowledge. I’m all for…

And even if you are living in a cornfield in the middle of Iowa, you will still be relying on subsidies from somewhere - family, government, church, etc. - If you want to get by on $8.50/hr. It’s all but impossible to do otherwise if you want to live in a house AND eat.

When I was living in a village in Peace Corps my host mother used to feed the baby chickens a breakfast of grains, bread, and boiled eggs. It was delightfully gruesome.