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.