RAS President Gives First Staffing Tip of the Month

Minimum Wage: The minimum wage for Ohio employers with 2008 gross receipts exceeding $267,000 will increase from $7/hour to $7.30/hour effective January 1, 2009. Those employers with receipts under the limit still must pay the federal minimum wage of $6.55/hour. Employees under the age of 18 are exempt from the Ohio minimum wage but must be paid the Federal minimum wage.

ADA: Both sides of Congress recently passed the ADA Amendments Act of 2008 which greatly broadens the scope of who is considered an individual with a disability. The Act will overturn four U.S. Supreme Court Decisions.

Obama's Priorities: The Obama agenda on labor issues includes passage of:

• Employee Free Choice Act
• Federal Healthy Famlies Act
• Higher Minimum Wage
• Ban Permanent Replacement of Striking Workers
• Expansion of FMLA

All of these are bad for business and can only create the loss of more jobs locally and nationally.

EEOC and the Staffing Industry: The EEOC last year filed a class action lawsuit against staffing company Area Temps accusing them of racial profiling in matching workers with company requests for people of a certain race.
While this lawsuit is far from resolved it does provide a timely opportunity for Ryan Staffing to re-state its policy against discrimination based on race, color, religion, gender or national origin.
It is also important that all of our clients recognize that on matters involving EEOC issues (and others) we are viewed as co-employers equally responsible for obeying the EEOC laws of the land.

Unemployment Rate Hearing: There's still no word on our appeal of our 2006/2007 rate determination. Did you know that one of the Unemployment Review Commissioners is Sylester Patton from Youngstown. He is a former State Representative that was term limited out of office and appointed to his $100,000+ position by Ted Strickland. To my knowledge, he has no experience with UC legal issues.

Staffing Tip of the Month: DOES YOUR STAFFING COMPANY INVOICE YOUR OVERTIME HOURS AT 1.5 TIMES THE REGULAR BILL RATE?
If the answer is yes, you have a great argument to negotiate a lower rate. Here is why.
Staffing companies make more on overtime hours than straight time hours simply because the pay rate is 50 percent more. Ryan Staffing has never felt a customer should be penalized just because a need exists to work a person more than 40 hours a week.
Ryan Staffing invoices conventional overtime hours at 1.4 times the regular bill rate. It is something worth checking!
*A new regular feature. Please send your questions or comments to tryan@ryanstaffing.com.