Posted on 16-Mar-09 by The Timekeeper

I’ve written before about Department of Labor Opinion Letters. These are incredibly interesting (and often useful) question-and-answer documents, where employers write in with queries about how to handle specific wage and hour or other labor-related issues, and the staff of the Department of Labor answer those questions.

There are two types of opinion letters: those from the Administrator, and Non-Administrator letters from the DOL staff. As you might expect, those from the Administrator tend to carry a bit more weight.

Why am I mentioning these again now?

Well, turns out in the month of January 2009, the DOL issued 40 (!) opinion letters on the subject of the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) alone — 36 Administrator letters and four Non-Administrator. While 20 of them (18 Administrator and two Non-Administrator) were almost immediately withdrawn for further consideration (and, one supposes, potential revision) they’ve all been published for public information on the DOL website.

That’s a whole lot of opinions, no matter how you slice it.

Several of the letters that have NOT been withdrawn cover topics some businesses may find particularly timely — especially businesses dealing with the economic downturn, maybe trying to cut payroll costs without laying folks off. Things like how to compensate employees working a compressed workweek, mandatory use of vacation time, voluntary and mandatory time off policies, etc.

These Opinion Letters could make for some interesting and potentially useful reading. If any of these topics are on your radar these days, you can save yourself a lot of grief by reading these Opinion Letters and discussing their implications with your employment attorney to make sure your ideas or plans are on the right side of the DOL’s rules.

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