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Proposed Minimum Wage Increase may Be Difficult for Illinois Small Businesses
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Hiring Practices Could Mean Tax Credit for Small Businesses
Under Illinois employment law, businesses who hire certain groups of employees could earn big tax credits this year.
According to the Illinois Department of Employment Security, employers who participate in the Work Opportunity Tax Credit program could earn up to $9,600 in federal tax credits for hiring certain groups of employees:
- Up to $2,400 for short-term welfare recipients and ex-felons
- Up to $9,000 over two years for long-term public assistance recipients
- Up to $9,600 per veterans for profit employers or up to $6,240 for non-profit organizations.
In addition to these federal credits, Illinois employers can earn substantial state tax credits for hiring veterans, particularly those who served during Operation Desert Storm, Operation Enduring Freedom, or Operation Iraqi Freedom. This credit can be up to $5,000. Ten percent of the total earnings paid to every qualified veteran hired after January 1, 2010 can be applied to the credit, as long as the veteran worked at least 185 days during the tax year.
Cargill Meat Solutions Corp. Ground Up by U.S. Department of Labor for Discriminatory Employment Practices
Cargill Meat Solutions Corp., one of the largest privately-held companies in the world, has agreed to settle with the U.S. Department of Labor and pay $2.24 million for allegations of sex-based, race-based, and ethnicity-based discrimination in the company's hiring practices. The settlement will be paid to 2,959 applicants who were discriminated against at three meat-processing plants during the hiring process for production jobs between 2005 through 2009.
The meat-processing plant in Springdale, Arkansas discriminated against female applicants, the plant in Fort Morgan, Colorado affected female, Caucasian and Hispanic applicants, and the plant based in Beardstown, Illinois discriminated against African-American and Caucasian applicants. Cargill's Senior Vice President made a statement stating that Cargill does not employ discriminatory hiring practices, and that the reason for settlement was to avoid lengthy litigation and any cost or disruptions associated with the action. The settlement amount represents back wages and interest owed to the applicants affected and as part of the agreement, Cargill has agreed to provide 354 jobs to the affected applicants as positions open up within the plants.
Employment Law Settlements
This type of settlement, especially as applied to one of the largest, privately-held corporations in the world, represents a significant win in the employment discrimination field. Having a large corporation at the forefront of an employment discrimination scandal forces other major corporations to reassess the way that they hire potential applicants. The U.S. Department of Labor may want to use Cargill as an example, proving to similar, major corporations that they cannot discriminate just because they have a significant profit margin.
Fair Labor Standards Act Exemptions
The Fair Labor Standards Act (FSLA) establishes a minimum legal working age, a minimum hourly wage that must be paid, and requires the payment of overtime pay for any employee who works more than 40 hours in a work week. Employers who fail to satisfy these requirements and provisions may be subject to an FSLA lawsuit. However, some employees are exempt from both of these provisions.
Commonly used exemptions to the FSLA requirements include:
- Commissioned sales employees who earn more than half of their wages from commissions may be exempt from overtime. The employee must also average at least one-half times the established minimum wage for each hour worked.
- Computer professionals who earn at least $27.63 per hour are exempt from overtime.
Tech Positions Replacing Middle Management
With the end of the year around the corner, employers and employees alike are looking back through 2013 to identify trends that help them to look forward. According to US News and World Report, one of the biggest changes in employment and the job market as of late doesn't involve the number of jobs available, but the type of positions being offered. “A new study from the job-matching service TheLadders suggests… that once-ubiquitous middle-management jobs—with titles like “manager” and “director”—are being replaced by skill-specific positions in the technology sector,” according to US News and World Report.
This arguably echoes similar sociological debates about the decline of the middle class and available positions that retain a certain degree of responsibility but that aren't necessarily high-stress. TheLadders study found that between 2008 and 2013, available job titles that contained the word “manager” had a 25 percent less growth rate than the average growth of job titles on average. “The growth rate of titles containing the word “director” is 50 percent lower,” reports US News and World Report. Of the top 10 percent of growing job titles, less than 2 percent were managerial or directorial positions.
Companies Warn of More Than 700 Possible Illinois Layoffs
As our country is still working its way up out of the recession, many people are still struggling to find and keep employment. Recently, a few different companies here in Illinois have announced that they may need to eliminate almost 584 jobs.
According to Illinois' Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act report, five other companies have also reported that plan to make even larger cuts in the near future, which means that a total of 745 jobs will be lost in not too long.
The largest of the upcoming Illinois cuts will occur within Booklet Binding Inc. / Team Services located in Carol Stream. This Chicago-area, which currently provides services of binding, packaging, and mailing, will be closing and shedding 177 different jobs.
Another packaging company, Triumph Packaging Group Inc., has stated that they too will be closing, eliminating a total of 98 jobs. Triumph is responsible for manufacturing paperboard boxes, and is currently located in Bolingbrook.
Unemployment Benefits Could Come to Screeching Halt
Although the country is well on the way toward full financial recovery after the economic crisis that rocked nearly every American industry in 2008 and 2009, unemployment numbers are still high. While there is a significant safety net for the unemployed in America, which includes benefits, unemployment insurance, and temporary compensation, that could be changing at the end of 2013. “Unless the president and Congress act before the end of the year, more than a million Americans will have the plug pulled on their jobless benefits the week after Christmas, and many others who've recently become unemployed or will become unemployed next year will see them sharply curtailed,” according to US News and World Report.
Non-Compete Agreements in Illinois: Where You Stand
If you are a business owner and you are considering utilizing a non-compete agreement, it is important to understand the implications of the agreement. Employment law agreements to not compete often involve a specified duration of time, a specified geographic area, or combination of the two which limits your employee's ability to work in the same industry in which your business operates. Courts look to the interests of the employer, employee and the public in assessing the validity of non-compete agreements. In Illinois, the enforceability of non-compete agreements depends on the reasonableness of the agreement.
Reasonableness is often in the eye of the beholder, but thankfully the Illinois courts have delineated some generalizations as to determining the reasonableness of a non-compete agreement. As it is with so much of the law, reasonableness as it pertains to non-compete agreements is determined on a case-by-case basis by examining the totality of the circumstances underlying the agreement. A non-compete agreement may be seen as reasonable and valid under one set of circumstances but unreasonable and invalid under another set of circumstance.
Keeping an Eye Out for Employment Discrimination in Illinois
No matter the size of your business, you should watch for potentially damaging situations that can stem from claims of workplace discrimination. In fiscal year 2012, the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission reported that there were 99,412 discrimination charges nationwide.
The report indicated that 5.5 percent of those total charges originated from Illinois. Illinois exceeded the national average for charges in several areas such as sexual, age and disability discrimination. Conversely, in areas such as race, religion and equal pay, Illinois percentages were beneath the national average.
| Discrimination Type | Nationwide | Illinois |
| Sexual | 4.8% | 26.24% |
The Difference between a Contractor and an Employee
As a small business owner you will be faced with many difficult tasks and decisions. That is because as a business owner you will have a variety of business responsibilities each day including accounting, marketing and human resources. Employing a staff can also be costly if you do not classify your support team correctly. There are tax penalties as well as other financial burdens for making this kind of mistake so it is helpful to know the differences.
Defining an Independent Contractor:
- They have their own employees
- They operate under a different company name
- They invoice you for their completed services
- They keep their own hours
- They advertise their business's services
- They have more than one client
The benefits of hiring an independent contractor include cost savings for your bottom line. They require less liability and provide greater flexibility to hire and fire them. They will only be working when they have tasks to complete.
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