Tag Archives: Department of Labor

Retired First Deputy Fire Chief Gary Mogel has filed an FLSA lawsuit against his former employer, the City of Reading, Pennsylvania alleging the city violated the FLSA by failing to pay fire department shift commanders any overtime. This lawsuit is the latest of several recent lawsuits involving fire department shift commanders challenging their employer’s classification as “white-collar” overtime exempt employees. ...

A group of more than 1,000 Washington D.C., police officers filed a lawsuit earlier this week in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia alleging the District has shorted the officers’ overtime rate during the COVID-19 pandemic. Specifically, the officers claim the District has failed to include hazardous duty pay in their regular rate of pay in violation ...

Today’s FLSA Question: I am a fire chief for a mid-sized municipal fire department located in Texas. Myself and my assistant chief are enrolled in the FLSA class that you are offering on-line this week, however I have a quick question and I cannot wait until Tuesday for an answer. We just sent several of our firefighters to California to ...

Today’s FLSA Question: I am a newly appointed fire chief. I am very concerned about some of my department’s pay practices. In particular, payments made to firefighters for paramedic certification and longevity are not being included in their regular rate of pay. I want to resolve this issue. Based on my figures, we probably owe our firefighters around $60,000 in ...

The State of California has agreed to pay almost 2000 firefighters a total of $4.8 million in back pay after shortchanging their regular rate over the past several years. According to The Sacramento Bee, the back wages will be going to approximately 1,900 CalFire firefighters that received cash payments in lieu of accepting employer sponsored medical benefits from May 2015 ...

The U.S. Department of Labor’s (DOL) Wage and Hour Division (WHD)—the arm of the DOL responsible for enforcing the FLSA—has announced a major policy shift related to liquidated damages in pre-litigation settlements following DOL investigations. As a result of this change, state and local government employers will likely be able to avoid any liquidated damages in the event a DOL ...

Lawyers representing the City of Martinsburg, West Virginia recently announced that the city will appeal a state court decision over holiday compensation for the city’s firefighters. In a February 2020 decision, Judge Laura Faircloth found as a matter of law [i.e. absent a trial], that the city’s holiday pay plan for its firefighters violated the West Virginia Wage Payment and ...

Today’s FLSA Question: I am a city human resources manager. Our city’s firefighters work 24 hours on-duty, followed by 48 hours off-duty for an average of 56 hours per week. Currently, the city utilizes a 27-day work period for line firefighters. However, our firefighters are paid bi-weekly. Therefore, firefighters frequently do not get paid for their overtime until two or ...

Putnam County, Tennessee has reached a $280,000 settlement agreement with a group of current and former EMTs following a 2019 lawsuit over alleged FLSA violations. The suit, which was initially filed by a lone paramedic last July, contained three basic allegations. First, the county failed to pay for off-the-clock pre-and-post shift work, second, the county improperly implemented the “fluctuating workweek ...

The City of Austin, Texas has announced that some city employees will be receiving “hazard pay” as a result of working during the coronavirus outbreak. Austin officials have announced that some city workers will receive a one-time lump-sum payment as a reward for coming to work during the height of the pandemic. The one-time payment could be as much as ...