Legal Implications for Human Resource Management

Touro University International

Legal Implications for Human Resource Management

MGT 516

Module 1 CASE

MGT 516 CASE 1- M.Joiner

In your opinion, do you think that both of these laws are as effective today as they were at the time they were passed? What recommendations would you make to update and improve both laws?

The Fair Labor Standards have changed tremendous since it

have been implemented. It has implemented changes and

benefits to help the working society. This new act has

proven to be a success to our working society with these

guidelines that have been set by the Fair Labor standards.

Fair Labor Standards is very effective today, although the

need for revision to meet the 21st century is a working

progress.

The FLSA dates back to 1938, and in many areas has had

little to no update since that time. It was originally

enacted in 1938 during the Depression and applied only to

private sector employees. It establishes a nationwide

minimum wage, and with limited exceptions requires that all

non-exempt employees be paid overtime at the rate of one

and a half times the employee's regular rate of pay for all

hours worked in excess of forty in a given seven day

work week. In recent years, it has been acknowledged that

many of the Act's provisions meet neither the current needs

or desires of employers or employees. However, the

political reality of making changes to this fundamental

wage-hour law has been difficult. The U.S. Department of

Labor had to publish a proposal to modernize its 50-year-

old regulations defining laws and regulation of the Fair

Labor Standards Act (FLSA). Those proposed changes include

revising laws and regulations to better correspond to 21st

century workplace realities.

At a conference on "Workplace of the Future," also held in

Washington, Victoria Lipnic, Assistant Secretary of

Employment Standards at the Department of Labor, noted the

need to update many FLSA Regulations. The Department of

Labor also is focused on changing so-called "white-collar"

exemptions from overtime pay in the wage-hour laws. The

"white-collar" exemptions include the executive,

administrative and professional exemptions to the FLSA's

minimum wage and overtime pay requirements. Toward this

end, the Department of Labor recently held a series of

meetings that included both employer associations and

unions. The Department is attempting to clarify and

simplify the Act's Regulations. The Labor Department is

working on overhauling the Field Operations Manual used by

its investigators in conducting workplace investigations.

COBRA is an acronym for the Consolidated Budget

Reconciliation Act. Budget reconciliation Acts used to be

an accounting exercise by Congress -- with pages and pages

of columns and columns of numbers. One day in 1985,

lawmakers discovered that they could use a Budget

Reconciliation Act to make law. The COBRA law, first

enacted in 1985, has been amended by subsequent tax bills

and other legislation, most importantly the Health

Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA). These

"COBRA" health care continuation requirements -- were

enacted as part of the Consolidated Omnibus Budget

Reconciliation Act of 1985 - generally entitle employees as

well as covered spouses and dependents) to extend (at their

own expense) their employer-provided health care coverage

for a period of time.