Assume you are the HR Director of a medium to large corporation or the owner of a small business. Draft a memo informing your employees on the topic you chose from the list below 1 thru 7 .

• The purpose of this memo is to keep them up to date on an issue that might affect them or the company.
• At a minimum, your memo should include:
• A description of the legal issue in a way that your audience could understand it (in other words, read, analyze, then draft your explanation in language that your employees would understand).
• Include an explanation of the current state of that issue/law (this is to help them understand a comparison to what the future might hold).
• A discussion on how your company will address that issue when/if the time comes.
• cite information

Legal protections for employees are likely to expand at the state level in 2018 but shrink under federal law, employment law attorneys say. At the federal level, expect a more employer-friendly Department of Labor (DOL), a new proposed overtime rule and greater deference by the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) to employee handbook policies. But retaliation claims will continue to be prevalent. At the state level, more sexual harassment training laws and pay equity legislation may be passed, as well as laws legalizing marijuana use and requiring paid leave.

2.Proposed Overtime Rule

The DOL predicted in its fall regulatory guidance, published Dec. 14, 2017, that it will issue a proposed overtime rule by October 2018. The DOL is expected to raise the salary threshold for white-collar exemptions but not as high as the Obama administration had.

TheSociety for Human Resource Management (SHRM) has recommended that the DOL raise the salary threshold from $23,660 to nearly $32,000 annually. The Obama administration overtime rule, a regulation that has been halted while the Trump administration develops its new overtime rule, would have doubled the salary threshold. SHRM opposed this doubling as "too much, too fast."

Defining and Delimiting the Exemptions for Executive, Administrative, Professional, Outside Sales and Computer Employees AGENCY: Wage and Hour Division, Department of Labor. ACTION: Final rule. SUMMARY: The Department of Labor is updating and revising the regulations issued under the Fair Labor Standards Act implementing the exemptionsfrom minimum wage and overtime pay requirements for executive, administrative, professional, outside sales, and computer employees. DATES: This final rule is effective on January 1, 2020. FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Amy DeBisschop, Director, Division of Regulations, Legislation, and Interpretation, Wage and Hour Division, U.S. Department of Labor, Room S-3502, 200 Constitution Avenue, NW, Washington, DC 20210; telephone: (202) 693-0406 (this is not a toll-free number). Copies of this final rule may be obtained in alternative formats (Large Print, Braille, Audio Tape or Disc), upon request, by calling (202) 693-0675 (this is not a toll-free number). TTY/TDD callers may dial toll-free 1-877-889-5627 to obtain information or request materials in alternative formats. Questions of interpretation and/or enforcement of the agency's regulations may be directed to the nearest WHD district office. Locate the nearest office by calling WHD's toll-free help line at (866) 4US-WAGE ((866) 487-9243) between 8 a.m. and 5 p.m. in your local time. The Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA or Act) requires covered employers to pay employees a minimum wage and, for employees who work more than 40 hours in a week, overtime premium pay of at least 1.5 times the regular rate of pay. Section 13(a)(1) of the FLSA, commonly referred to as the "white collar" or "EAP" exemption, exempts from these minimum wage and overtime pay requirements "any employee employed in a bona fide executive, administrative, or professional capacity." The statute delegates to the Secret ary of Labor (Secretary) the authority to define and delimit the terms of the exemption. Since 1940, the regulations implementing the exemption have generally required each of the following three tests to be met : (1) the employee must be paid a predetermined and fixed salary that is not subject to reduction because of variations in the quality or quantity of work performed (the "salary basis test"); (2) the amount of salary paid must meet a minimum specified amount (the "salary level test"); and (3) the employee's job duties must primarily involve executive, administrative, or professional duties as defined by the regulations (the "duties test"). The Department of Labor (Department) has long used the salary level test as a tool to help define the white collar exemption on the basisthat employees paid less than the salary level are unlikely to be bona fide executive, administrative, or professional employees, and, conversely, that nearly all bona fide executive, administrative, and professional employees are paid at least that much. The salary level test provides certainty for employers and employees, as well as efficiency for government enforcement agencies. The salary level test's usefulness, however, diminishes as the wages of employees entitled to overtime increase and inflation reduces the real value of the salary threshold. 5 The Department increased the standard salary level from $455 per week ($23,660 per year) to $913 per week ($47,476 per year) in a final rule published May 23, 2016 ("2016 final rule"). That rulemaking was challenged in court, and on November 22, 2016, the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas enjoined the Department from implementing and enforcing the rule. On August 31, 2017, the court granted summary judgment against the Department, invalidating the 2016 final rule because it "makes overtime status depend predominately on a minimum salary level, thereby supplanting an analysis of an employee's job duties." Nevada v. U.S. Dep't of Labor, 275 F. Supp. 3d 795, 806 (E.D. Tex. 2017). An appeal of that decision to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit is being held in abeyance. Currently, the Department is enforcing the regulations in effect on November 30, 2016, including the $455 per week standard salary level, which is the level that was set in a final rule issued April 23, 2004 ("2004 final rule"). Taking into account the Nevada district court's conclusion with respect to the salary level, public comments received in response to a July 26, 2017 Request for Information (RFI), and feedback received at public listening sessions, the Department has undertaken this rulemaking to revise the part 541 regulations so that they effectively distinguish between the white collar employees whom Congress intended to be protected by the FLSA's minimum wage and overtime provisions and bona fide executive, administrative, and professional employees whom Congress intended to exempt from those statutory requirements. The Department published a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) on March 22, 2019. The NPRM stated that the standard salary level needed to exceed $455 per week to more effectively serve its purpose, but that the 2016 final rule's increase to $913 per week was inappropriate because it excluded from exemption 4.2 million employees whose duties would

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Additionally, the Department proposed special salary levels for U.S. territories and an updated base rate for employees in the motion picture producing industry. The Department also proposed to allow employers to count nondiscretionary bonuses and incentive payments toward satisfying up to ten percent of the standard salary level or any of the special salary levels applicable to U.S. territories, so long as such bonuses are paid at least annually. Further, the Department proposed to update the highly compensated employee (HCE) total annual compensation level?a higher compensation level that is paired with a reduced duties requirement to provide an alternative basis for exemption under section 13(a)(1). The HCE level was set at $100,000 in the 2004 final rule and increased to $134,004 in the 2016 final rule, but the Department has continued to enforce the $100,000 level in light of the district court's invalidation of the 2016 final rule. In the NPRM, the Department proposed to update the HCE level by setting it equal to the annualized value of the 90th percentile of weekly earnings of full-time salaried workers nationally, resulting in a level of $147,414 per year. The Department proposed to project both the standard salary level and HCE total annual compensation level to January 2020, the final rule's anticipated effective date. Finally, the Department explained its commitment to update the standard salary level and HCE total compensation levels more frequently in the future using notice-and-comment rulemaking every four years. The Department proposed no changes to the standard duties tests. The 60-day comment period on the NPRM ended on May 21, 2019, and the Department received more than 116,000 comments. The vast majority of these comments, including tens of thousands of duplicate or similar submissions, were campaign comments using similar template 8 language. 4 After considering the comments, the Department has decided in this final rule to maintain the proposed methodology for updating the part 541 standard salary level, but not to inflate the salary level to January 2020. The Department is also finalizing the special salary levels for certain U.S. territories as proposed, and updating the base rate for employees in the motion picture producing industry. Additionally, the Department is finalizing its proposal to permit employers to count non

Step 1 of 3 Facts of the case: Calzoni Boating Company was approached by a representative of their five hundred person workforce regarding changing the work week to four-ten hour days and are concerned that they would have to pay overtime for plus eight-hour work days. Comment Step 2 of 3 Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) of 1938: This act covers wage and hour requirements for employers engaged in any interstate commerce and other some businesses. Under the act employees must be paid 1.5 times their regular pay for all hours worked over forty. Exceptions to this act include the following: . Executive . Administrative . Professional employees . Outside salespersons . Computer programmersStep 3 of 3 Opinion: Calzoni is concerned with the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938. However, they need not be since the forty-hour work week is measured over a seven-day work week. Unless their company policy states that they pay overtime for more than eight hours worked on a single shift or work day, then they will not have to pay overtime to workers who maintain a ten-hour shift within an forty-hour work week