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To Protect and Serve . . . and Make a Living: Court Rules Moonlighting Police Officers Are Employees At Second Jobs

By Kevin Murphy

Last week, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit recognized that “the way we work in America is changing. The relationships between companies and their workers are more fluid and varied than in decades past.” Acosta v. Off Duty Police Services, Inc., Nos. 17-5995/6071 (6th Cir.  Feb. 12, 2019). Many companies now seek to classify their employees as independent contractors in order to avoid providing them overtime, health insurance, workers’ compensation protections, unemployment benefits, and even minimum wage and social security contributions. In 2017, the Trump Administration reversed Obama-era rules combatting this trend, signaling that the current Department of Labor would throttle back on investigation and enforcement of the Fair Labor Standards Act when it came to misclassified employees. The Fair Labor Standards Act is the federal law that requires employers to pay their employees minimum wage and overtime.

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Managing Misclassification: What You Should Know About the Employee Fair Classification Act

By Rachel Hairr

The Employee Fair Classification Act (EFCA), adopted by the North Carolina General Assembly in August, goes into effect on December 31, 2017. Here’s what employers and employees need to know.

The EFCA’s Purpose

The EFCA was enacted to address the practice of misclassifying employees as “independent contractors,” an issue which gained state-wide, and later national, attention in 2014. By classifying workers as independent contractors, employers can avoid paying state and federal payroll taxes, unemployment taxes, and providing worker’s compensation insurance, which would be legally required if the worker were classified as an employee. The practice of misclassification is particularly rampant in such industries as the construction industry.

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