Facebook improves benefits for its contractors

Facebook recently announced improved benefits for its contractors and vendors in the United States, including a $15 minimum wage, a minimum of 15 paid days off for holidays, sick time and vacation — and for workers who don’t get paid parental leave, a $4,000 new child benefit.

In a news release, the company’s Chief Operating Office, Sheryl Sandberg said the new policy would allow parents the flexibility to take paid parental leave. Because women comprise about two-thirds of minimum wage workers nationwide, Sandberg wrote, minimum wage adjustments particularly affect women.

In Florida, the minimum wage is currently $8.05, which is higher than the $7.25 federal minimum wage.

If an employer does not pay at least minimum wage, the employer may be in violation of the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), which is a claim the lawyers at Wenzel Fenton Cabassa often handle.

The FLSA guarantees a number of rights to workers — including tipped employees, like waiters, whose hourly wage plus the tips earned must add up to at least the minimum wage.