Recordkeeping: What you must keep – and for how long

The trouble with recordkeeping at a lot of companies: You don’t know how complete your records are until you get involved in litigation or an audit. But by then, it’s often too late to fill in any critical gaps.  

That’s why it’s essential to know — before you find yourself in some kind of legal dispute — what documents you need to hold onto and what you can trash without putting your company at risk.

To be on the safe side, many employment law attorneys recommend you keep everything for at least five to seven years after an employee has left.

That’s sound advice — if you’ve got the storage and personnel to keep track of all those docs for that long. But it may be overkill, and often isn’t necessary to comply with many employment law record retention requirements.

Here’s a rundown of document retention rules under laws such as the FMLA, COBRA, FLSA, ERISA, HIPAA, ADEA and Equal Pay Act, courtesy of the employment law experts at the law firm Lindquist & Vennum:

Employee leave

The FMLA requires employees to hold on to a slew of employee leave-related paperwork for at least three years, including:

  • Identifying data regarding the employee on leave, which includes name address, occupation, pay rate, terms of compensation, days worked, hours worked per day, and additions or deductions in pay
  • Dates and hours of FMLA leave
  • Copies of employer notices to employee(s)
  • Documents describing employee benefit and premium payment info
  • Docs describing any disputes over FMLA benefits, and
  • Copies of the company’s FMLA policy.

Benefits plans

A slew of laws (ERISA, COBRA, ADEA, HIPAA) layout what benefits plan-related documents companies must hang onto, and the length of time docs must be saved varies by the enforcing law. Here’s a summary of the essentials:

  • Employee benefit plan governing documents — keep indefinitely
  • Summary plan descriptions and notices — keep indefinitely
  • Records backing up the information reported on Form 5500, such as vesting and distribution info, coverage and nondiscrimination testing data, benefit claims info, enrollment materials, election and deferral data, and account balance and performance data — keep for six years after the Form 5500 filing date
  • Evidence of fiduciary actions — keep indefinitely
  • HIPAA privacy record documents — keep six years from the date it was created or the date it was last in effect, whichever is later, and
  • COBRA notices — no required retention period, but it’s recommended these documents be kept for at least six years from the date they were given.

Compensation

Most compensation-related documents, with the exception of Certificates of Age (keep those until termination), do not need to be kept longer than three years, including:

  • Records containing employees’ names, addresses, dates of birth, occupations, pay rates and weekly compensation — keep for three years
  • Collective bargaining agreements and changes/amendments to those agreements — keep for three years
  • Individual contracts — keep for three years
  • Written agreements under the FLSA — keep for three years
  • Sales and purchase records — keep for three years, and
  • Basic employment and earnings records, like wage rate tables used to calculate wages; salary, wages and overtime pay info; work schedules; and additions to or deductions from wages — keep for two years.

Hiring

There are a number of hiring and recruitment-related materials employers must hold on to, including:

  • Hiring documents, like job applications, resumes, job inquiries and records of hiring refusals — keep for one year from date of action
  • Job movement docs, such as promotion, demotion, transfer, layoff and training selection info — keep for one year from date of action
  • Test materials, including test papers and employee test results — keep for one year from date of action
  • Physical examination results — keep for one year from completion, and
  • I-9 forms — keep for three years after the date of hire or one year after the date of termination, whichever is later.

Litigation changes the equation

Once you’re on notice that any matter may become the subject of litigation or an audit, you must keep all documents related to that matter until the case has come to a conclusion — no exceptions.

In addition, you must anticipate litigation when you receive a notice that a lawsuit is being filed, notice of a DOL or EEOC charge, an attorney demand letter, or an internal complaint.

What you must keep in those instances includes:

  • the personnel file of the complainant
  • all documents related to his or her application, hiring, promotions, transfers, disciplinary actions, evaluations, training, pay and medical records
  • job postings
  • job descriptions
  • complaint records of other employees
  • investigation notes and documents
  • supervisor notes and records, and
  • anything related to an alleged harasser or wrongdoer.

Bottom line: The best way to successfully fend off litigation or an audit is to be able to produce strong, comprehensive documentation.

11 remarkable overtime rule tips from DOL insider

Turns out there’s more to the FLSA’s overtime exemption rule changes (and salary threshold) than meets the eye. A former DOL administrator recently opened a lot of employers’ eyes with what she had to say about the new rule. 

In front of a packed room filled with more than 1,000 HR professionals at the SHRM16 Annual Conference & Exposition, the former administrator of the DOL’s Wage and Hour Division, Tammy McCutchen, surprised a lot of attendees with her insights on the rule changes.

McCutchen was the main architect behind the 2004 changes to the FLSA’s overtime exemption rules. So she has a unique handle and perspective on how the new overtime rule will be enforced and how employers can go about complying with it. She’s now an employment law attorney with the firm Littler Mendelson, P.C. and counsels businesses on how they can comply with the FLSA.

In her presentation, she shared 11 critical tips about the law every employer should see:

1. Think $913, not $47,476

McCutchen said many employers are focusing on the $47,476 annual threshold under the FLSA’s salary basis test. But she warned not to do that.

Why? It’s a week-by-week test. Therefore, employers need to focus on making sure exempt employees are paid $913 per week.

If there are weeks that employees don’t make at least $913, the DOL will consider them non-exempt (or, rather, the DOL’s new favorite term: “overtime-eligible”) for those weeks.

2. Think $821.70 when adding in bonuses

There is an exception to the $913-per-week rule: it’s when employers will count nondiscretionary bonuses toward up to 10% of the threshold.

In that case, exempt employees must be paid at least $821.70 per week. Then, when a bonus is paid out (and they must be paid out at least quarterly), the employees’ pay for that quarter must average out to at least $913 per week.

3. Nearly every bonus is nondiscretionary

McCutchen said the DOL’s definition of nondiscretionary bonus is very, very broad.

As a result, she said just about every bonus employees receive will be nondiscretionary.

4. The bonus method is risky

McCutchen said she’s hesitant to advise employers to go with a strategy in which they’ll attempt make up any shortfall between the $821 figure and the $913 figure with a bonus.

Why? Because if an employee fails to earn the bonus, or the company makes a calculation or payroll error that results in an employee making less than $913 in any week within a quarter, the employee must be classified as OT-eligible for that entire quarter — and that can get very expensive very quickly.

As a result, she suggests just rolling bonus pay into an employees’ base salaries to get, and keep, them above the $913 threshold. Or, at the very least, she says employers must consult with outside legal counsel and present that counsel with a plan as to how they plan to make the bonus calculations/payments. Then, she implores employers to audit their bonus processes frequently.

Plus, she said, there’s the whole issue of what happens when an employee leaves in the middle of the quarter. In those causes, she said to play it safe and pay the person any bonus amount necessary to get them over $913 per week worked.

5. With highly compensated employees, don’t forget the last “4”

McCutchen said if an employee makes more than the new highly compensated employee salary threshold — $134,004 — chances are they’ll pass the minimal duties test thrown at them. But employers can’t forget the last “4” on that number.

She said she’s hearing the number “$134,000” tossed around a lot, and she warned that setting someone’s salary at $134K won’t make them a highly compensated employee under the rule.

6. Expect a big increase in three years

As you’ve likely heard, the salary basis threshold will be reset every three years.

Currently, it was set at the 40th percentile of earnings in the lowest wage census region — the South — and it will be reset to that figure every three years.

But McCutchen said the data set the DOL will be looking at three years from now will be much different than the data set it used to establish the $913 figure. Due to this year’s change to the FLSA, she said she expects a lot of the lower salaries to drop out of the data set over the next three years and to see a lot of the higher salaries climb.

As a result, she said the threshold will likely be much higher when the FLSA is updated again in January 2020.

She also reminded employers that they’ll get 150 days’ notice before the 2020 salary threshold kicks in.

7. Make the switch over Thanksgiving

As you know, the new salary threshold kicks in Dec. 1, 2016. Do you know what day that is?

It’s a Thursday, and because of that McCutchen said you don’t want to have employees’ new salaries or classifications kick in on that day.

Why? It’ll result in an administrative nightmare in which some employees will be exempt for half of the week and non-exempt the second half.

A better way: Make the change the week of Thanksgiving. She said due to the holiday, it’s unlikely newly OT-eligible employees will have to work overtime that week, which can make the transition a lot easier (without making it more expensive).

8. Remember state notice requirements

Some states require employers to provide workers with advance notice of changes in their pay, and employers can’t forget to abide by them.

McCutchen said such laws tend to require a one pay period heads up — and typically just for reductions in pay. Meanwhile, Missouri requires employers to give workers 30 days’ notice for pay reductions.

9. Meet the most stringent duties test

McCutchen pointed out that 18 states have duties requirements that differ from federal regulations.

Which ones are employers required to follow? Answer: An employer must follow the more difficult of either its state’s duties test or the federal duties test.

10. The rule changes aren’t going away

McCutchen said the chances are “slim to none” that the new exemption rule gets nixed or delayed prior to the effective date of Dec. 1.

11. There is a cost-neutral salary formula

One option employers are considering for affected employees who work 40-plus hours per week is dropping those employees’ base pay rates and then allowing those folks to make up for the shortfall by receiving overtime pay.

But some employers are struggling to determine what to reduce those employees’ base wages to.

So McCutchen shared a DOL-recommended formula for determining what an employee’s pay rate should be, so that when the person works overtime their total compensation isn’t more than what he or she’s currently taking home.

In other words, it’s a cost-neutral formula. But it’s really only cost-neutral if you have a good estimate of the person’s expected weekly hours (including overtime).

Here’s the formula: Weekly Salary/(40+(OT Hours x 1.5))

Here’s how it would work: Say you have an employee who works 45 hours every week with a weekly salary of $800. His hourly pay rate for the purposes of calculating overtime is $20 per hour ($800/40), so his OT-rate would be $30 per hour ($20 x 1.5). Now if this employee worked 45 hours per week, he’d make $950 per week ($800 + $30 x 5).

Now let’s use the cost-neutral formula for this same person working 45 hours per week. His base weekly pay rate would be dropped to $16.84 ($800/40+(5 x 1.5)). That would mean his OT-rate would be $25.26 ($16.84 x 1.5). So his weekly take-home pay for 45 hours’ worth of work is $800 ($16.84 x 40 + $25.26 x 5).

But McCutchen did admit this is a hard sell for this employee because it basically means a pay cut if he doesn’t get five hours of overtime each week.

Overtime crisis nearing: 6 steps to avoid pitfalls

It would be hard for any regulatory change to be as impactful as the passage of the Affordable Care Act. But the DOL’s impending changes to the overtime exemption rules may be exactly that. 

As if that wasn’t stressful enough, you’ll have far less time to prepare for the fallout of the overtime rule changes than Obamacare gave you.

The new rules won’t be phased in over the course of a decade like the ACA’s mandates. All signs point to the overtime rules taking effect before the end of 2016.

They’ll affect 2016 budget, staff plans

That means the time to start prepping is now, since the overtime rules will affect your budget and staffing plans for the 2016 calendar year.

And even without the final rules in hand yet (the comment period for the proposed rules just ended), there are steps employers would be wise to take now to brace for them — no matter what form the rules ultimately take:

1. Audit employees’ work hours

As you know, the DOL’s poised to raise the minimum salary threshold to be exempt from overtime to $50,440. So the first step is calculating how many hours your employees who earn less than that are actually working.

Reason: You don’t want to assume they work 40 hours per week only to be blindsided by the fact that they actually work 50 hours per week after the rule changes have reclassified those employees as non-exempt.

Next, you’ll want to weigh the cost of giving raises to those under, but near, the threshold — and who are most likely to work more than 40 hours per week — to avoid overtime obligations.

Note: The DOL may allow you to count nondiscretionary bonuses, and possibly commissions, toward 10% of workers’ salary levels. That may help to drag a few of your fence-sitters over the threshold without you having to give them a raise. But we won’t know until the final rules are issued.

2. Assess the effect on benefits offerings

One question you’ll want to ask yourself: Will being reclassified as non-exempt make some employees no long eligible for certain benefits that they once had?

If so, do you want to change your benefits plans to enable those workers to keep their benefits — or might you want to eliminate those benefits to make up for any costs resulting from having to now pay those workers overtime?

3. Expand time-tracking

No matter how you slice it, companies’ non-exempt employee populations are about to swell.

That will require expanding systems to track more workers’ hours to ensure proper overtime pay.

It couldn’t hurt to visit with your tech department now to start discussing ways to implement or expand time-tracking systems.

4. Revisiting remote work arrangements

It’s time to ask yourself what the rule changes could mean for remote work — checking work email, taking phone calls after hours, etc.

You can dissuade or even prohibit non-exempt employees from doing these things after hours all you want. But here’s the bottom line: Some are still going to do it — and when they do, you need a way to track that work time and compensate them for it.

Again, get together with your IT folks to determine the best ways to track employees’ after-hours/at-home work.

It’s worth noting that the DOL, in its Spring 2015 Regulatory Agenda, said it’s seeking information on “… [T]he use of technology, including portable electronic devices, by employees away from the workplace and outside of scheduled work hours …”

As a result, expect some rulemaking on this subject as well — like perhaps a definition of what qualifies as “de minimis” work.

Currently, the FLSA does say that “de minimis” work (typically five minutes or less) done beyond the 40-hour workweek by non-exempt employees is not compensable.

However, the common practice of workers reading and responding to emails off the clock on their smartphones has complicated the issue of “de minimis” work.

5. Create a communication plan

If you’re not going to raise some workers’ salaries — and they’re about to be reclassified as non-exempt — you need a plan in place for how you’ll break this likely upsetting news to them.

Some issues you’ll need to tackle:

  • Punching a clock. More workers are going to have to do it, and it may seem like a demotion. How will you explain why it’s now necessary?
  • Loss of flexibility. For your current salaried workers, being turned into hourly employees means taking time off to go to the doctor or attend a child’s event could result in less pay. Again, how will you break this news to them? And will you let them make up the time?

6. Prepare for changes to the duties test

It appears the DOL may eliminate the “concurrent duties” rule and require employees to spend more than 50% of their time exclusively on exempt duties for them to maintain an exempt classification.

Assume those changes will be adopted and you could avoid unpleasant surprises down the road.

The next costly HR headache: Workers’ comp to double

It never ends. You’re already trying to comply with Obamacare. Then, you’ll have to deal with the DOL’s new overtime exemption rule changes. What’s next? 

A wave of workers’ compensation claims, according to one insider.

Our good friends over at SafetyNewsAlert.com recently attended the annual conference for the Association of Occupational Health Professionals in Healthcare and came back with some concerning info for HR pros.

‘It’ll double’

While presenting at the conference, Phil Walker, the founder of the Phil Walker Work Comp Savings Company and a national trial counsel for employers in California workers’ comp cases, said workers’ compensation claims will double over the next 10 years.

According to Fred Hosier, SafetyNewsAlert’s editor-in-chief, Walker said there are three reasons for this:

  1. Technology will eliminate low-paying jobs. We’re already seeing this at places like Amazon, which is using robots to eliminate warehouse jobs, and Wendy’s, which is starting to use order kiosks in place of warm-blooded order-takers, Walker said. And what happens when low-paying jobs are eliminated? People who occupied those positions file workers’ comp claims.
  2. Municipal bankruptcies. It’s no secret cities are having financial problems. As a result, retiree benefits are getting cut, which is already leading to a spike in workers’ comp claims. Walker said when United Airlines filed for bankruptcy, 100% of the people who “retired” filed a workers’ comp claim. And when United tried to enter negotiations to settle these claims, not one person did.
  3. Doctors are money-hungry. As a result, Walker said doctors are looking for excuses to perform surgery, are referring more patients to specialists and pain management providers, and billing above cost knowing they’ll settle with insurance companies for far less. Walker said docs are doing this because they’re finding it hard to survive on what Obamacare and Medicare plans are paying them.

What can employers do?

Is there a way to avoid the coming workers’ comp avalanche? Walker says there may be.

He said companies will start requiring their retiring or terminated employees to submit to pre-termination physicals. This will allow employers to screen for any employment-related health problems and, if none are found, provide employers with the ammo needed to refute bogus workers’ comp claims.

This may be an avenue worth exploring if you start to notice a spike in fishy workers’ comp claims.

And the Employer Policy Hall of Shame’s newest inductee is …

Did this organization really think it could get away with this policy, which should immediately be enshrined in the Employer Policy Hall of Shame? 

United Bible Fellowship Ministries Inc., a Houston-based non-profit organization that provides housing and residential care to disabled clients, had a “no pregnancy in the workplace” policy.

That’s right … if you’re pregnant, you can’t work there. It prohibited the continued employment of any employee who became pregnant and prevented the employment of any pregnant applicant seeking a resource technician position, according to the EEOC, which sued the employer over the policy.

The policy came to the agency’s attention after United Bible fired Sharmira Johnson, a resource technician who provided care to United Bible residents, after she got pregnant. Johnson took her story to the EEOC.

The agency then sued in U.S. district court, claiming the policy violated Title VII of the Civil Right Act, after it tried to reach a pre-litigation settlement.

While admitting that Johnson had performed her job well and had no medical restrictions at the time she was terminated, United Bible said her firing was legal — arguing it ensured her safety, as well as that of her unborn child.

But whether or not the organization was looking out of their safety, basing a decision to terminate solely on an employee’s protected status (pregnancy, disability, age, race, gender, etc.) is illegal under federal law.

The verdict

The court ruled that United Bible had “recklessly failed to comply with Title VII” and awarded Johnson $24,764 in back pay and overtime, as well as $50,000 in punitive damages, according to a statement by the EEOC.

The court went on to say that United Bible failed to show that all, or substantially all, pregnant women would be unable to safely and efficiently perform the duties of a resource technician, the EEOC said.

Adding insult to injury, the court pointed out that United Bible was under a funding contract with the Texas Department of Aging and Disability, which specifically required the organization to comply with all anti-discrimination laws.

Following the trial, EEOC Senior Trial Attorney Claudia Molina-Antanaitis, warned employers that they cannot “impose paternalistic and unsubstantiated views on the alleged dangers of pregnancy to exclude all pregnant women from employment.”

Telecommuting ruling not all it’s cracked up to be for employers

A district court just ruled Ford Motor Co. was right to deny a disabled employee’s ADA accommodation request to telecommute. But don’t pop any corks in celebration of the ruling that said “… regularly attending work on-site is essential to most jobs … “ just yet.

While the ruling certainly is good news to employers who fear being dragged into court for denying a disabled worker’s request to work from home under the ADA, it’s far from a green light to deny such requests.

In fact, all this case does with any certainty — despite the seemingly one-sided ruling — is show just how hard it is to prove that on-site attendance is an essential function of someone’s job, which is the case you’ll have to make in court to show a worker’s accommodation request to telecommute is unreasonable.
Issues with her request

To fully understand why this ruling isn’t all it’s cracked up to be, we have to go back to the beginning.

Jane Harris worked for Ford as a resale steel buyer. Her job was to act as the intermediary between steel suppliers and plants.

Harris also suffered from irritable bowel syndrome. Her symptoms caused her to repeatedly show up to work late, leave early and miss work entirely on many occasions. Her attendance issues got worse as time went on, and in the latter years of her employment, she consistently received low performance ratings and criticism.

Eventually, Harris claimed her condition made it impossible for her to drive or leave her desk without soiling herself. So she requested that she be allowed to work from home as many as four days per week.

Ford had a few problems with her request:

It said her job was “interactive,” in that it required her to have face-to-face contact with suppliers and plant officials to keep up relations — therefore, in-person attendance was an essential function of her job, the company claimed
Her job required computer work that couldn’t easily be completed remotely, and
She had already been granted the ability to work from home up to two days per week and her performance under that arrangement had been substandard.

So Ford denied her telecommuting request, and she was eventually terminated for performance issues.
EEOC sues

Harris took her case to the EEOC, which sued on her behalf, claiming Ford discriminated against her on the basis of her disability. The agency claimed Harris’ telecommuting request was reasonable and should’ve been granted.

Ford fought the suit and, originally, a district court sided with the automaker. It dismissed the EEOC’s case on summary judgment, ruling it shouldn’t go to trial.

But, on appeal, a three-judge panel of the Sixth Circuit court reversed the decision and said her case should go to trial. It said that as technology has advanced, so have remote work arrangements. As a result, the court said, “… attendance at the workplace can no longer be assumed to mean attendance at the employer’s physical location.“

This ruling sent shock waves through the employer community, as it seemed to suggest that telecommuting would be a reasonable accommodation under most work arrangements.
Court rehears case

Shortly after the appeals court ruling, the full panel of Sixth Circuit judges agreed to vacate the decision and rehear the case en banc (meaning, in front of all the judges of the court).

In an 8-5 decision, the panel sided with Ford and dismissed the EEOC’s case on summary judgment.

It said Ford acted reasonably in denying Harris’ telecommuting request. While it acknowledged that there have been great advancements in technology, which could make telecommuting easier, those advancements didn’t prove that Harris’ job could be performed at home.

It said Harris only provided “unsupported testimony” that she could perform her job at home, and that wasn’t enough to create the “genuine dispute of fact” needed to send a case to trial.

The court also acknowledged that Harris’ poor performance ratings under the two-day telecommuting arrangement helped support Ford’s case that she couldn’t perform her job remotely.

But perhaps the most compelling statement the court made is this:

“We do not write on a clean slate. Much ink has been spilled establishing a general rule that, with few exceptions, ‘an employee who does not come to work cannot perform any of his job functions, essential or otherwise.’ … And for good reason: ‘most jobs require the kind of teamwork, personal interaction, and supervision that simply cannot be had in a home office situation.’”

“That general rule — that regularly attending work on-site is essential to most jobs, especially the interactive ones — aligns with the text of the ADA.”

Hold the celebration

That certainly seems to be a powerful statement — one that suggests it’ll now be easier for employers to make the argument that on-site attendance is an essential function of most jobs.

But pump the brakes.

There are two things employers should be careful not to overlook about this case:

This was by no means a slam dunk victory for Ford. An appeals court did rule that the EEOC’s case should proceed to trial, before the court’s full panel of judges swooped in to save the employer — and even then five judges dissented letting Ford win summary judgment, and
The EEOC has, time after time, demonstrated it doesn’t consider itself bound to past court decisions like this one. Translation: If it feels you’ve wronged a disabled individual, and it believes it can milk some cash out of you and make an example of you, it’ll sue.

Bottom line: It appears no matter the circumstance, it’s still going to be hard to prove that in-person attendance is an essential function of any job. So it’s going to be tough to defend denying disabled individuals the ability to telecommute on those grounds.
Steps employers should take

So if you’re an employer in Ford’s shoes — and want to be able to deny a person’s request to telecommute — what should you do?

The best advice we’ve come across is from labor and employment law attorney Eric. B. Meyer of the firm Dilworth Paxon LLP.

In his blog, The Employer Handbook, Meyer suggests employers:

Make sure your written job descriptions spell out when attendance is an essential function. Then provide copies of those descriptions to employees when they’re hired — and perhaps get employees to sign off on them.
Make sure managers understand and abide by the job descriptions. If a manager starts to let telecommuting slide, it’s going to be hard to prove in-office attendance is an essential function.
Analyze all accommodation requests on their own merits. There’s no one-size-fits-all formula to treating employees’ accommodation requests. You’ve got to enter the interactive process for each request — and keep the dialogue open with employees — in an attempt to seek out reasonable accommodations.

Reminder: The states are looking at your pay practices, too

Just a reminder: It’s not just the feds who are on the lookout for wage and hour violators — it’s state authorities, too.

Case in point: New York Attorney General Eric T. Schneiderman announced settlements totaling $970,000 with four current Domino’s Pizza franchisees, who together own 29 stores across New York State, as well as with one former franchisee who owned six stores. The franchisees admitted to a number of labor violations, including minimum wage, overtime or other basic labor law protections, according to Schneiderman’s office.

The admitted violations varied by location and time period, and included the following:

Some stores paid delivery workers below the tipped minimum wage applicable to delivery workers under New York law.
Some stores failed to pay overtime to employees who worked over 40 hours in a week, and others under-paid overtime, because they did not combine all hours worked at multiple stores owned by the same franchisee, or because they used the wrong formula to calculate overtime for tipped workers, unlawfully reducing workers’ pay.
Delivery workers who used their own cars to make deliveries were not fully reimbursed for their job-related vehicle expenses.
Delivery workers who used their own bicycles to make deliveries were typically not reimbursed for any expenses related to maintaining their bicycles, nor were they provided with protective gear as required by New York City law.
Some stores violated a state requirement that employers must pay an additional hour at minimum wage when employees’ daily shifts are longer than 10 hours.
Some stores also violated a state requirement that employers must pay restaurant workers for at least three hours of work when those employees report to work for a longer shift but are ultimately sent home early because of slow business or other reasons.
Some stores took a “tip credit” without tracking tips, and assigned delivery workers to kitchen or other untipped work for more time than legally permitted. Employers may only take a “tip credit” and pay a lower minimum wage to tipped restaurant employees if those employees earn enough in tips and spend most of their time – at least 80 percent –performing tipped work.

Schneiderman’s been on Domino’s case for a while. The recent agreements follow settlements announced last year with six Domino’s pizza franchisees, who together owned 23 stores and agreed to pay a total of $448,000 in restitution.