Truck Drivers have a right to receive minimum wage. Our employment law team is ready to fight for you.

Swartz Swidler, LLC is an employment law firm, located in South Jersey, that has a reputation of protecting the rights of truck drivers throughout the United States.  Our Firm has litigated against some of the largest trucking companies in the United States, and is currently class counsel for a certified case consisting of more than 35,000 truck drivers.  In our experience, we have repeatedly seen examples where trucking companies simply fail to recognize their obligations under the FLSA with respect to minimum wage.  Over the road truck drivers are frequently denied minimum wage.  Truck drivers are entitled to minimum wage for all hours worked, and that includes all time spent which benefits the employer, including time spent waiting for cargo, time spent in breaks where are not for bonafide meal periods, and even some sleeper berth time. Truck driver are also commonly improperly designated as independent contractors and are forced to pay for business costs of their carrier, such as lease payments, insurance payments, and more.  If you think you may have been denied wages, please call us today to speak to one of our New Jersey and Pennsylvania employment attorneys for a free consultation regarding your rights.

If you are being subject to unlawful deductions from your wages, you are a victim of wage theft. Let our Wage and Hour Employment Attorneys work for you.

Our employment attorneys will carefully analyze your paystubs to determine if you have been denied minimum wage because an employer has deducted costs from you which you were forced to incur for the benefit of your employer.  In the alternative, if you were not repaid for costs you were forced to expend for your employer’s benefit, you may have also been paid below the minimum wage.  Please call one of our employment attorneys today for more information.

Tipped Employees, including waiters and waitresses, are commonly victimized by wage theft and are denied minimum wage and overtime. Our South Jersey team of employment lawyers will help you recover your wages.

Employees who receive tips are commonly denied minimum wage for all hours worked.  While employers are permitted to use the so-called “tip credit” against an employee’s wages for employees who earn at least $30 per month in tips (up to $5.23 per hour, meaning that the employer must still pay the employee $2.13 per hour), tipped employees must earn at least $7.25 per hour with the inclusion of tips.  Furthermore, an employer’s right to use the “tip credit” will be revoked if the employer has an unlawful tip-sharing plan.  In addition, employers commonly subject tipped employees to FLSA violations by requiring them to come to work at a specific time, and then refusing to let them begin work if business is slow.  Likewise, employers may not require you to clock-out during slow periods of the day, only to resume work later.  If you think you may have been subject to such wage violations, please call us today for a free consultation.  Our New Jersey and Pennsylvania employment lawyers are happy to discuss your work situation with you!

Under the Fair Labor Standards Act, as well as New Jersey and Pennsylvania state law, most employeesmust be paid time and one half for all overtime (hours worked beyond 40 per workweek).

While most employment attorneys will be aware of the overtime requirements of the law, the employment attorneys of Swartz Swidler, LLC offer a breadth of experience and knowledge that few firms can match.  Employees are frequently denied overtime through unlawful and evasive tactics of their designed to prevent the employee from being paid the full amount they are owed.  Listed below are common examples of the types of overtime violations our employment lawyers have handled

Off-the-clock work is wage theft. It is also illegal. Let our employment attorneys recover your lost wages.

It may not seem intuitive, but our experienced employment attorneys know that a large amount of FLSA overtime violations occur because employers require employees who are already scheduled to work 40 or more hours per week to work off the clock.  These off the clock violations take many forms, including: not being paid for pre-shift and post-shift work, including:

(1) donning and doffing violations (i.e. not being paid for the time it takes to put on and remove work-related personal protective equipment);

(2) pre-shift and post-shift meetings, including roll-call and other types of meetings;

(3) lunch-deduction policies where a lunch break is automatically deducted from each day’s pay, regardless of whether a lunch break is actually taken and regardless of whether the employee is actually relieved of duty during the break;

(4) policies of an employer where short breaks of less than 20 minutes are unpaid; and

(5) any other type of practice or policy where an employee is not paid for all their work time.

If you believe that you may have been subjected to one or more off-the-clock violations, please call one of our experienced employment attorneys today for a free consultation.

The Fair Labor Standards Act and New Jersey law require that you receive at least time-and-one-half for overtime hours worked.

The Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) mandates that most employees receive time and one-half of their “regular rate” for hours worked over 40 per workweek.  But what does time and one-half mean if you receive shift differentials, bonuses, or other income rather than just your base rate?  The term “regular rate” is a legal term of art, and it includes a lot more than just your base rate.  For as long as the FLSA has been the law of the land, employers have attempted to evade the requirements of overtime by attempting to reduce the overtime premiums paid to employees, all while insisting on increase productivity of their employees.  One such common scheme exists where an employer attempts to reduce the hourly rate of an employee by contending that some of the employee’s wages are not part of the hourly rate.  The regular rate, however, requires that all weekly compensation by considered when determining the overtime rate.  A few examples of such unlawful schemes which our employment attorneys have litigated are listed below.

(1) Shift Differentials: Shift-differentials are generally provided to employees for working undesirable shifts.  Shift differentials have the legal effect of raising the employee’s “regular rate” and hence, raising the employee’s overtime premiums.  While it may not seem like a lot, even relatively low shift-differentials can result in significant amounts of overtime entitlements.  For example, an employee who receives $10 per hour with a $2 shift differential should receive overtime at $18 per hour (time and one half of the $10 base rate plus the $2 shift differential) – not $15 (i.e. not time and one half of the employee’s base rate alone).

(2) Piece-Rate Pay: Some employes receive some or all of their compensation on a “piece rate” basis.  “Piece rate” pay practices provide compensation to employees for completing certain tasks.  Mechanics are commonly paid on a piece rate basis, although many other employees are as well.  An employee who works on a piece rate basis is entitled to overtime compensation, and the overtime premium must include all amounts paid on the piece rate basis.

(3) Attendance Bonuses / Non-discretionary Bonuses: A bonus which is discretionary in both amount and whether it is provided at all does not change the regular rate, and hence, does not change the overtime premiums required under the Fair Labor Standards Act.  However, bonuses which are provided by contract, by agreement (written or oral), by practice, and/or by the handbook are not discretionary bonuses but instead constitue compensation for hours worked.  Hence, when an employee receives such amounts, they may be entitled to additional overtime premiums.

Rounding which regularly denies you pay for all your hours worked is illegal. Let our FLSA and Wage and Hour Attorneys fight to end such practices and get your paid.

Our experienced New Jersey and Pennsylvania employment attorneys have routinely examined and challenged rounding policies which short employees from time they actually worked.  The FLSA prohibits an employer from using a rounding system which, over time, benefits the employer by failing to pay an employee for all hours worked.  Rounding may have made sense back when the Fair Labor Standards Act was enacted in 1938 – when payroll was done by hand.  But As we have moved into the 21st century, electronic time-clocks and computerized payroll obliterates the need for rounding practices, and yet, rounding is still commonly used by employers in nearly every industry.

Why?  Many employers have increased the workday by several minutes both per and post-shift and use rounding to trim off the extra time worked by employees.  Most typically, employers may use a 15-minute rounding system where time is rounded forward in time if one clocks in or out within 7 minutes before the next quarter hour, and backwards in time if one clock in or out within 8 minutes after the pervious quarter hour.  While such a policy is neutral on its face, the employer then uses its disciplinary policies to punish employees for clocking in 1 minute late or clocking out 1 minute early.  By using such discipline, the employer has ensured that all the rounding which occurs will benefit it.  Such a practice violates the law.

If you believe your employer is unlawfully rounding your time, please call us today for a free consultation.  One of our experienced employment attorneys will gladly take time to determine if you have a claim.

Authorized overtime policies are generally unlawful.

An employer may discipline an employee if he or she works unauthorized overtime.  However, an employer may not deny pay to an employee who has worked overtime when the employer has knowledge that the employee worked overtime.  If you worked overtime and were not paid for it because your employer claim the overtime was not necessary or unauthorized, call one of our employment lawyers today.  We will work to get you paid.

Have you been misclassified as an exempt employee when you are entitled to overtime?

Most employees in the United States are entitled to overtime, even if they are salaried employees.  Many employers have attempted to evade the overtime requirements of the FLSA by claiming that an employee is an executive.  There are very few exemptions under the FLSA with respect to overtime.  The most common are executive, professional, and administrative.

To be an exempt employee under the overtime requirements of the FLSA as the executive exemption, you must be able to hire and fire employees, and you must have at least 2 full time employees who report to you.  Regardless of title, one is not an executive unless the aforementioned criteria are met.

To be an exempt employee under the overtime requirements of the FLSA as an administrative employee, you must use significant independent discretion with respect to substantial financial decisions of the company.

Swartz Swidler, LLC located in Cherry Hill, NJ, prosecutes FLSA claims throughout New Jersey and Pennsylvania, and has prosecuted nation-wide collective action claims from all over the country.