On June 18, 2012, a 5-4 split United States Supreme Court held in Christopher v. SmithKline Beecham Corp. that under the most reasonable interpretation of the Department of Labor’s regulations, pharmaceutical sales representatives are exempt from overtime as outside salespersons under the Fair Labor Standard Act. This decision resolves the split in authority between the Ninth and Second Circuits in favor of employers and strikes a blow to the deference accorded to the DOL in interpreting its regulations. Read More
Tag Archives: Fair Labor Standards Act
The Affordable Care Act and Lactation Breaks
As the nation awaits the Supreme Court’s opinion on the constitutionality of its individual health insurance mandate, some lesser-known provisions of the “Patient Protection & Affordable Care Act” (a.k.a. “Obamacare”) have received short shrift. For instance, the Affordable Care Act also amended the Fair Labor Standards Act (“FLSA”) and requires employers to provide nursing employees with “a reasonable amount of break time to express milk as frequently as needed” for up to one year after a child’s birth. The law also requires all employers subject to FLSA to provide employees with a private place to express milk that is not a bathroom.
While at first blush, this law sounds rather broad, it contains several limitations: Read More