Now that the Democrats have lost their 60-vote supermajority in the Senate, it will be that much more difficult for the Obama administration to make good on many of its pro-employee campaign promises. But this still could be a key year for Democratic plans to revamp our national employment laws. Here are seven key initiatives pending in Congress and what they could mean for your business if they become law.

Exotic dancers at the Penthouse Executive Club in New York City’s Hell’s Kitchen neighborhood are suing in Manhattan federal court, claiming their bosses have been raiding the tip box, pilfering money that rightfully belongs to the dancers. They allege the owners sometimes took so much money that some dancers’ pay fell below the minimum wage.

If you’re considering hiring inmates through a work-release program, carefully weigh whether you will have to pay them as regular employees under the FLSA, or whether you may be able to pay them less. According to a recent 5th Circuit decision, prisoners specifically sentenced to hard labor may not be covered by the FLSA. Their employers may pay them less than minimum wage, and they’re not eligible for overtime pay.

Q. Without authorization, one of our employees worked extra hours this week, even though we told everyone they needed approval to work overtime. Are we required to pay overtime for the unauthorized hours?

Q. We have salespeople who work on a straight commission basis. Do we need to track their hours?

Employers that want to avoid paying overtime to white-collar workers often invoke the Fair Labor Standards Act’s administrative exemption. For the administrative exemption to be legitimate, all of the following must be true:

If you classify some employees as exempt under the Fair Labor Standards Act’s professional exemption, make sure their jobs truly meet the criteria. Otherwise, you risk a potential wage-and-hour lawsuit for unpaid overtime.

The Superior Super Warehouse chain of grocery stores must pay $79,200 in penalties for allowing teenage employees to operate dangerous equipment. The U.S. Department of Labor cited the chain for violations of the Fair Labor Standard Act’s child labor provisions at 33 stores in Southern California.

If you ask workers to show up a little early to start their computers and get ready to work, be prepared to pay them for that time or risk getting sued. How to avoid such lawsuits: Design better systems so prep time is minimal—but still paid. Or simply start the actual shift a few minutes after paid time begins.

Sometimes it’s hard to imagine many advantages of being a union workplace, but here’s a bit of good news: At least in some limited circumstances, working under a collective-bargaining agreement gives employers some protection against FLSA lawsuits that demand payment for time spent putting on and taking off protective gear at the beginning and end of the workday.

Employees of T.J. Maxx stores in Texas have filed a class-action suit alleging that the retailer stiffed workers out of regular wages and overtime pay. The lawsuit claims management required workers who exceeded their scheduled hours to work off the clock and told them to use vacation and sick time to cover time worked beyond their scheduled hours.

Q. We have an employee whose job requires her to perform check-in tasks for about an hour at the beginning of the day. She is then needed to perform certain check-out tasks eight hours later at the end of the day. During the remainder of her workday she performs various administrative services. To manage her time and avoid overtime, we began asking her to take an extra hour break during the middle of the day. She says she doesn’t want to take this additional break. Can we require her to take the additional breaks so that we don’t have to pay her overtime?

A recent Florida case illustrates just how complicated the tip credit provision of the FLSA can be. In that case, a hostess at a Sushi Samba restaurant claims the restaurant forfeited its right to claim the tip credit because it distributed tips to employees who weren’t eligible to receive them. The controversy turns on the question of whether sushi chefs are tip-eligible employees.

Q. Our pay stubs currently list employees’ available vacation, sick and other leave hours. Our new software allows employees to log in and check that balance anytime. Can we eliminate that information from the pay stubs?

A simple mistake—wrongly classifying employees as exempt when they should be hourly—can easily balloon into a multimillion-dollar overtime lawsuit. Often, the trick is knowing which workers exercise enough discretion to be properly labeled administrative exempt professionals. Our exempt/nonexempt self-audit helps you make the call.