Today—July 1, 2022—marks the effective date for a handful of new Virginia laws that public and private employers should note. Given that the General Assembly was divided this year, with the Republicans in charge of the House and the Democrats in charge of the Senate, it was unsurprising to see fewer employment law bills make it out of session compared with the prior sessions of 2021 and 2020. Still, some noteworthy changes have been made that warrant attention and action by all employers.
1. Amendment to the Virginia Overtime Wage Act ( Code § 40.1-29.2, HB1173/SB631)
The General Assembly substantially amended the controversial Virginia Overtime Wage Act, Va. Code § 40.1-29.2 (VOWA), which originally passed last year in 2021. The 2022 amendments struck most of VOWA’s language and replaced it with a simple paragraph adopting the federal Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA).
This is good news for employers who may largely revert to their pay practices that predated the passage of VOWA. But they must be careful—these amendments were not retroactive. This means that claims could potentially be brought for overtime violations occurring between July 1, 2021 and June 30, 2022 under the original VOWA—with all of its ambiguity.
In addition, the amended VOWA still permits employees to bring wage and hour claims governed by the FLSA in Virginia’s courts, following the fairly new process set forth in Va. Code § 40.1-29(J), colloquially coined the “Virginia Wage Theft Act,” established...
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