- with Senior Company Executives, HR and Inhouse Counsel
While many anticipate a more business-friendly administration, the appointment of a seemingly pro-labor Republican as Labor Secretary and President Trump's populist instincts could make it hard to predict what the year ahead will bring for wage and hour law.
Start-of-the-Year Status
Minimum salary for EAP exemptions
- Vacated.
- DOL has filed an appeal.
Independent contractor rule
- Several lawsuits pending.
- Trump Administration may restore regulations his DOL previously issued.
80-20 regulation for tipped employees
- Vacated.
- Employees will still seek to impose it, or some version of it, as a valid interpretation of the statutory language permitting a tip credit.
Federal contractors
- Minimum wage mandate for federal contractors valid, for now, in most jurisdictions.
- Trump executive order likely imminent.
What to Watch
- Congressional weigh-in on Trump's campaign promises:
- No tax on tips or overtime?
- Comp time for private employees?
- Overtime determined based on an 80-hour cycle?
- Labor Secretary nominee Lori Chavez-DeRemer: The degree to
which she will be a wild card.
- Will DOL shift focus from enforcement actions to education and job creation?
- Wage and hour collective actions: Procedural shifting sands.
- Erosion of "conditional" certification.
- Bristol-Myers reins in nationwide collectives.
- Enforcement + litigation: The extent to which the locus shifts to the states.
The Year Ahead 2025: Back to the Future for Core Wage and Hour Concerns
Hosts: Justin R. Barnes, Principal and Wage and Hour Co-Leader, and Eric R. Magnus, Principal and Class Actions and Complex Litigation Co-Leader
"A corollary to the populist instincts of president-to-be Trump [i.e., his possible support for some increase to the federal minimum wage] is this issue about removing taxes on tips. This is something that could certainly happen in 2025 — and it would be the most important effect on the wage and hour practice in the entire time I have been practicing in this area."
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