Maine employers, are your labor law posters up to date? You might want to double-check!
While many were surely prepared to update their minimum wage posters for 2018, it may come as a surprise that the Maine Department of Labor (MDOL) also made an important revision to the Maine Employment Security Poster – especially since the agency chose to backdate the notice, making it not immediately noticeable that this is a new change.
Maine Employment Security Poster
MDOL announced in late November that it would be launching a new unemployment benefits filing system on December 6. The new system, known as ReEmployME (ME being the state abbreviation for Maine), came about as part of a partnership between Maine, Connecticut, Mississippi, and Rhode Island which allowed them to create a shared cloud-based system that could also be customized to comply with each state’s unique requirements.
According to Governor Paul LePage, “This new system is the result of years of work in collaboration with other states to create a modern, efficient unemployment system. The focus of unemployment is to get people back to work quickly in a permanent or a temporary bridge job. This system will not only do just that, but it will also save taxpayer money over time because of the ReEmployUSA partnership with other states. ReEmployME is a national model.”
The new Maine Employment Security Poster provides the URL for ReEmployME’s online portal, www.maine.gov/reemployme, replacing the invalid URL for the previous file4ui.com system. Although this is a small change, it is an important one – while claimants still have the option of filing a claim for benefits by phone, they are now required to submit their mandatory weekly Work Search through ReEmployME in order for claims to be processed.
The revision date for the new poster is 3/17, although the poster did not change until the ReEmployME system launched in December of 2017.
Maine 2018 Minimum Wage Poster
Maine voters passed a minimum wage ballot initiative in November of 2016, requiring annual updates to the state’s minimum wage each January until it reaches $12.00 per hour in 2022. On January 1, 2018, the general minimum wage rose to $10.00 per hour, an increase of $1.00 from the 2017 rate. The direct cash wage for service employees remains set at $5.00 per hour, in accordance with a law passed in 2017 allowing employers to use a tip credit of up to one-half of the minimum wage.
Maine is also one of the few states to set a state-level minimum salary requirement for exemption from overtime requirements. Under M.R.S. §663(3)(K), a salaried employee may qualify for exemption from overtime if they work in a bona fide executive, administrative, or professional capacity and receive regular compensation which “exceeds 3000 times the State’s minimum hourly wage.” Effective January 1, 2018 the minimum salary requirement increased to $576.93 per week to compensate for the increase in the minimum wage.
The Maine Minimum Wage Poster has been updated with the rates, effective January 1, 2018, for the general minimum wage, the tipped minimum wage, and the minimum salary requirement for overtime exemption. MDOL made these major changes in December of 2017, giving the poster a revision date of 12/17.
In January 2018 the department made a minor additional change to the poster by revising the format of the URLs for additional minimum wage and overtime guidance. The new revision date for the 2018 Maine Minimum Wage Poster is 1/18, but employers still posting the 12/17 version don’t need to worry – you haven’t missed anything important.
Update Your Maine Labor Law Posters Now!
If you have an outdated Maine workplace poster, you can make compliance easy by ordering a Maine All-On-One™ Labor Law Poster or a Maine Mobile Poster Pak ™ for desk reference or mobile worksites. Our signature products combine the most recent version of all mandatory state, federal, and OSHA postings in one convenient package to ensure that you never lose track of a posting requirement.
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