As discussed in our previous blog, the Department of Labor proposed a significant increase to the salary threshold of the white-collar exemption of the Fair Labor Standards Act. Other than projecting in December 2023 that it would issue a final…

The Department of Labor recently issued its final rule on classifying workers as independent contractors (as opposed to employees) under the Fair Labor Standards Act. The rule takes effect March 11, 2024.The new rule focuses on the economic realities of…

Unions gained 191,000 new members during 2023, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, continuing its upward trend.  During 2022, unions gained 273,000 new members.  The age group with the highest increase was 35-44 years, with an increase of…

My family originally was from a small farm close to Selma, Alabama.  My father, Paul Leslie Rose, was born in 1885 at a place called Hamburg Station, Alabama, which was the location of the farm where he was born.  To…

As COVID fears have eased and Zoom fatigue has grown, the road warriors have re-emerged.  In-person meetings with clients and customers and work and industry conferences are back in vogue.  And with those meetings come the perennial questions about when…

Workplace romances can emerge between colleagues in the same department, between managers and subordinates, between employees with no commonality other than their lunch hour, and between an employee and an important third party (a customer contact, a vendor, etc.). Ideally,…