Wage and Hour Law: Guide to Methods and Analysis

This practical guide offers management, psychology, and related professionals comprehensive background in—and robust methods for evaluating—frequently litigated wage and hour issues. Wage and hour compliance is impacted by numerous sources including federal laws such as the Fair Labor Standards Act, state and local laws, guidance from government enforcement agencies and court decisions. This book provides a clear and understandable overview of the legal context along with methods for data collection and analysis to measure and evaluate compliance pertaining to commonly litigated disputes, such as independent contract classification, FLSA exemptions, pay equity, and off-the-clock work. This framework for understanding and responding to such cases is suitable to both those new to the field and expert consultants while also acting as a springboard for further research in this increasingly relevant legal area. Included in the coverage: · Trends in wage and hour litigation. · Applicable data collection methods for evaluating wage and hour compliance. · Assessing employment status. · Strategies to measure and prevent off the clock work. · Factors that impact meal and rest break compliance. · Stages of a class-action lawsuit. · Statistical sampling and analyses. · Understanding and analyzing pay equity. Wage and Hour Law: Guide to Methods and Analysis fills knowledge needs for an audience that includes management and industrial/organizational psychologygraduate students interested in legal issues as well as testifying experts, external consultants, HR practitioners, management professionals, and labor economists.

About the Author

An Associate Director with leading global strategic advisory and expert consulting firm Berkeley Research Group, Chester Hanvey provides consulting services on labor and employment issues in both litigation and non-litigation contexts. Dr. Hanvey has worked with more than 100 organizations across a range of industries including public and private sectors. He specializes in designing and conducting job analyses and conducting statistical analyses to evaluate wage and hour compliance, appropriateness of class certification, allegations of discrimination, and damages. Dr. Hanvey’s wage and hour experience includes the evaluation of overtime exemptions (misclassification), meal- and rest-break compliance, employee vs. contractor status and off-the-clock work. His experience with employment discrimination claims includes the measurement of adverse impact and test validation in the contexts of hiring, promotion, layoffs and compensation to evaluate alleged discrimination on the basis of protected class membership and disability. Dr. Hanvey holds a Ph.D. in Industrial/Organizational (I/O) psychology with a minor in quantitative methods (statistics).  He has authored chapters and journal articles and regularly presents at professional conferences on the topics of wage and hour litigation, class certification, and statistical analyses.  He is the co-editor and a contributor to HR Practitioner’s Guide to Legal Issues in Organizations, a book that offers practical guidance on evaluating a variety of employment legal issues.  He has also taught undergraduate courses in psychology and graduate courses in statistics and research design.