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 It was originally enacted in 1938 during the Depression and applied only to private sector employees.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. COBRA is an employee right that is federally legislated and enforced by both the IRS and the Department of Labor.
COBRA laws are constantly changing and being interpreted by the courts. These constant changes make COBRA difficult to interpret and even more difficult to administer. There are very severe penalties that can be invoked if the COBRA rules are not strictly adhered to. In the year 2000, over 50 changes to the regulations occurred and, in 2001, additional changes are expected. With such a vast number of changes to COBRA regulations it is virtually impossible for employers to stay in compliance.
The new Flex-Plan COBRA Solution focuses your time on more critical issues, knowing that the Flex-Plan COBRA solution is maintaining your compliance. The range of employers affected by COBRA is very broad, with exemptions available only for employers that normally employs fewer than 20 employees, and church plans, and plans maintained by the U.S. government.
COBRA is one of the more administratively complex pieces of legislation in the employee benefits area. This complexity is underscored by the fact that COBRA has been subject to numerous legislative changes in recent years, which have outdated parts of the proposed regulations originally issued by IRS in 1987. The Department of Labor should reestablish and thoroughly investigate all of the laws and regulation established inFLSA and COBRA.
The world has change drastically, so the Laws and regulations has revamped in the many different ways. It’s critical to employees to received a fair and honest evaluations of the FLSA and COBRA laws, because these laws help citizens live a successful life. Both laws FLSA an COBRA correspond with each other, so in order for a employee to receive the totally package in the workplace the government must take charge of innovating new ideas to compensate workers.
WORK CITIED
- www.gcglaw.com (Wage/Hour Laws Need Updating)
- www.dol.gov (Workforce Empowerment Strategies for the 21st Century)
- WWW.dol.gov (FLSA laws and regulation)
- www.hr.blr (Cobra Laws)
- www.gtlaw.com (Department of Labor Issues New Cobra Notice)
- www.flex-plan.com (Flex Plan Cobra)
