Tag Archives: Fair Labor Standards Act

Temporary pay raises granted to federal wildland firefighters in 2021 have become permanent thanks to a  federal appropriations bill passed by the Senate this past week. The bill includes around $330 million in funds designated for the permanent continuation of the pay increases implemented in 2021 as part of the White House’s effort to raise the minimum wage for federal ...

Two-hundred and twenty-three Fort Wayne, Indiana firefighters have filed a lawsuit in federal court alleging the City of Fort Wayne isn’t calculating their overtime pay as required by the FLSA. The lawsuit was filed in the United States District Court for the Northern District of Indiana on August 15, 2024. The firefighters claim the city is calculating their regular and ...

A recently retired arson investigator has filed a lawsuit in federal court alleging his former employer, the City of Providence [Providence Fire Department], failed to pay him for all of the time spent caring for and training his K9 work partner. The complaint, which was filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Rhode Island by retired arson ...

A federal judge in South Carolina has dismissed an FLSA misclassification lawsuit filed by a former firefighter/medic without the need for a trail. United States District Court Judge Bruce Howe Hendricks granted Jasper County’s request to dismiss the 2021 lawsuit filed by Heather Davis, a former firefighter/medic for Jasper County’s Emergency Services Department. In the lawsuit, Davis alleged that the ...

The James Island Fire Department has approved a hefty pay increase for its firefighters in a newly adopted 2025 budget. This significant increase in starting firefighter pay follows a public information campaign begun by James Island’s firefighters over the past several months. The purpose of the campaign was to raise awareness and public support for the firefighters’ low wages. The ...

Today’s FLSA Question: I have noticed several recruiting announcements lately where municipalities and private corporations are offering new paramedics sign-on, retention, and even relocation bonuses. These bonuses can be significant. In fact, one agency is offering a $10,000 sign-on bonus, a $10,000 retention bonus (after completing 2 years) and another $5,000 as a relocation bonus. Do these bonuses need to ...

A Lancaster, Pennsylvania, firefighter has dropped an FLSA regular rate lawsuit pending a potential settlement. Geoff Stone, the president of the Lancaster Professional Firefighters, IAFF Local 319 filed the lawsuit on behalf of himself and other firefighters in federal court in October, 2023. Chief among his allegations was that the city failed to include longevity pay in his [and other ...

A Maryland firefighter has filed an FLSA lawsuit on behalf of himself and other firefighters alleging their employer, the Berlin Fire Company, Inc., failed to pay overtime as required by the FLSA and Maryland law. The complaint, which was filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland contains allegations that the Berlin Fire Company misclassified the plaintiff ...

Local resistance to the planned reassignment of career firefighting personnel from combination (volunteer/career) stations to other short-staffed stations throughout Prince George’s County continues to mount following a lawsuit filed this week. The original story, which we covered last month on FirefighterOvertime.org involved plans to reassign more than fifty career firefighting personnel from combination stations to other short-staffed county stations during ...

Two similar FLSA lawsuits have been filed by firefighters from two different West Virginia cities in the past week. The first, which my friend and colleague Curt Varone covered on his Fire Law Blog last Wednesday, contained allegations that the City of Clarksburg was improperly calculating its firefighter’s regular rate of pay in violation of the FLSA. [You can find ...