A federal investigator from the U.S. Department of Labor spoke at the Society for Human Resource Management NMI Chapter\u2019s monthly meeting at the Hyatt Regency Saipan yesterday to describe recent labor audit issues his office has been encountering in the Commonwealth.<\/p>\n
Wage and Hour Division\u2019s Dean Tenorio said that many of the local labor issues relate to deductions, overtime, and break hours.<\/p>\n
One of the main points that Tenorio emphasized at the meeting was the issue of deductions in an employee\u2019s paycheck. He said an employer should not deduct from the salary of an employee if it will result in the salary going lower than the set minimum wage.<\/p>\n
Whatever deductions\u2014whether payment for tools, uniforms, or damages\u2014that an employer will apply to an employee must not result in the former paying lower than the minimum wage of $6.05 an hour.<\/p>\n
He added that materials or tools that are needed for job safety must be the employer\u2019s responsibility.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou can deduct if you are paying higher than the minimum wage,\u201d Tenorio said. \u201cDeductions should be for the employee\u2019s benefits.\u201d<\/p>\n
He added that overtime pay is also protected from deductions and must be counted on a weekly basis.<\/p>\n
Working off the clock<\/strong><\/p>\n Tenorio also pointed out the enforcement of breaks as well as the observance of the hours and right compensation for employees who worked those hours.<\/p>\n He told of cases where employers were unreasonable in their expectations of the employees when they require the latter to finish demanding workloads without exceeding their regular hours just so they will not pay for overtime.<\/p>\n He also cited cases wherein an employee is somehow forced to clock out for break time even if he or she didn\u2019t actually go on a break.<\/p>\n \u201cThe question is not whether they didn\u2019t eat. It\u2019s about if they take a break that\u2019s not interrupted,\u201d Tenorio said.<\/p>\n One member of the audience asked Tenorio about \u201cdevoted employees\u201d who insist on working even when off the clock.<\/p>\n Tenorio reminded the managers and supervisors that it is their responsibility to monitor these employees\u2019 activities as well as maintain accurate records of their employees\u2019 hours.<\/p>\n According to SHRM chapter president Frank Gibson, the board chose their topic for this month.<\/p>\n \u201cThese are the issues that concern all of our members,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n SHRM is the world\u2019s largest association devoted to human resource management.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" A federal investigator from the U.S. Department of Labor spoke at the Society for Human…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":16,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[4882,2312,1068,1538],"class_list":["post-202738","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-local-news","tag-dean-tenorio","tag-frank-gibson","tag-hour-division","tag-shrm"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/202738","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/16"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=202738"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/202738\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=202738"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=202738"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=202738"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}