Last month, we wrote about the new District of Columbia Wage Theft Prevention Act, which dramatically changed D.C. wage and hour laws to impose new record keeping obligations and penalties on employers operating in the District. The new law is set to go into effect on February 26, 2015.
After posting our article on the law, we received a number of comments from clients concerned about the law’s requirement that employers keep time records for exempt employees. Specifically, the law required that District employers keep records documenting the “precise time” that both exempt and non-exempt employees work each day. The new law also required that exempt employees be paid at least twice per month.
In response to an outcry from the employer community, on February 3, 2015, the D.C. Council amended the law to eliminate the requirement that employers keep time for exempt employees and that they pay exempt employees at least twice monthly. The Council explained that it did not intend to impose these obligations on employers insofar as they apply to exempt employees. Exempt employees remain covered by the other obligations imposed by the law, including the obligation to provide employees with a written notice of their wages.
Although the Wage Theft Prevention Act remains a new and onerous obligation for employers in the District, it is heartening to see that the D.C. Council acted so quickly to correct this error in the way the legislation was drafted.