In one of the more shocking developments in a year full of surprises, a federal appeals court breathed new life into the Biden administration’s mandate-or-test emergency vaccine rule with a stunning Friday afternoon decision....more
“The Court ORDERS that Defendants are ENJOINED, during the pendency of this action or until further order of this Court, from enforcing the vaccine mandate for federal contractors and subcontractors in all covered contracts...more
As a result of a somewhat surprising ruling from a federal court judge in Kentucky Tuesday, the federal government is currently blocked from enforcing the vaccine mandate for federal contractors and subcontractors in all...more
Federal workplace safety officials just released the mandate-or-test workplace vaccine emergency rule, and employers are sure to have questions. The Emergency Temporary Standard (ETS) developed by the Occupational Safety and...more
11/5/2021
/ Best Practices ,
Coronavirus/COVID-19 ,
Covered Employer ,
Employer Liability Issues ,
Employer Mandates ,
Employment Policies ,
Federal Contractors ,
Healthcare Workers ,
Joint Employers ,
OSHA ,
Reasonable Accommodation ,
Recordkeeping Requirements ,
Religious Accommodation ,
Remote Working ,
Reporting Requirements ,
Unions ,
Vaccinations ,
Virus Testing ,
Workplace Illness and Injury Reporting ,
Workplace Safety
The Safer Federal Workforce Task Force just issued new COVID-19 Workplace Safety Guidance for Federal Contractors and Subcontractors, which provides further detail and guidance on the vaccine mandate and COVID-19 safety...more
9/28/2021
/ Coronavirus/COVID-19 ,
Employer Mandates ,
Federal Contractors ,
Masks ,
New Guidance ,
Reasonable Accommodation ,
Religious Accommodation ,
Social Distancing ,
Subcontractors ,
Vaccinations ,
Workplace Safety
As part of the Biden administration’s “Path Out of the Pandemic” plan released yesterday, President Biden issued an executive order adding COVID-19 vaccination requirements affecting nearly all federal contractors. The new...more
A federal judge just issued a preliminary injunction to stop government enforcement of a controversial presidential executive order that severely curtailed the ability of federal contractors to offer diversity training on...more
It appears to be official: unless the election results can be overturned in several states, Joe Biden will soon be our nation’s 46th president. Now the work begins to forecast what the next four years will bring. We’ve spent...more
11/9/2020
/ Affirmative Action ,
Biden Administration ,
Data Privacy ,
Data Security ,
Employee Benefits ,
Employee Privacy Rights ,
Federal Labor Laws ,
Immigration Procedures ,
Immigration Reform ,
Labor Relations ,
Legislative Agendas ,
Paid Leave ,
Pay Equity Laws ,
Political Campaigns ,
Restrictive Covenants ,
Wage and Hour ,
Workplace Safety
Employers conducting internal pay equity audits now have a roadmap for ensuring that their pay equity audits remain confidential in the wake of pay equity litigation. Thanks to a recent federal court ruling from an Oregon...more
10/30/2020
/ Attorney-Client Privilege ,
Audits ,
Collective Actions ,
Confidential Information ,
Employer Liability Issues ,
Employment Litigation ,
Pay Discrimination ,
Pay Equity Laws ,
Putative Class Actions ,
Wage and Hour ,
Work-Product Doctrine
When President Trump issued an executive order on September 22 on “Combating Race and Sex Stereotyping,” the federal contractor community was concerned about what new requirements might be added to their already full plates....more
10/1/2020
/ Bias ,
Diversity ,
Diversity and Inclusion Standards (D&I) ,
Employee Training ,
Executive Orders ,
Federal Contractors ,
OFCCP ,
Race Discrimination ,
Race Relations ,
Sexual Stereotyping ,
Trump Administration
Employers across the country got a bit of good news today as the federal government announced that the EEO-1 reporting process would be delayed by a year, with the next reporting deadline pushed to March 2021. You are now...more
As COVID-19 continues to wreak havoc on the economy, many employers are making the difficult decision to reduce a portion of their workforce – whether temporarily (via furlough) or permanently (via layoff) – to keep their...more
In an announcement sure to please federal contractors, the OFCCP announced Friday that it would not use any of the pay data gathered by the EEOC in this year’s expanded collection efforts for enforcement purposes. The...more
A federal judge yesterday ordered the EEOC to continue its pay data collection efforts and complete its efforts into next year, ruling that an insufficient number of employers have submitted their revised EEO-1 reports....more
Citing the high burden on employers and the unproven usefulness of the program, the EEOC announced yesterday that it will halt further collection of pay data during future EEO-1 reporting cycles. While you still need to turn...more
The EEOC recently released guidance to assist those employers filling out their EEO-1 reports who have non-binary employees – those who choose not to identify as male or female – in their workforces. This question has become...more
The news that President Trump selected Eugene Scalia to take over as Labor Secretary late last week caught some employers by surprise; after all, it was just a week ago that we were analyzing the track record of the...more
7/22/2019
/ Administrative Appointments ,
Affirmative Action ,
Data Collection ,
Department of Labor (DOL) ,
EEO-1 ,
Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) ,
Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) ,
Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) ,
Labor Policies ,
Medical Leave ,
OFCCP ,
OSHA ,
Pay Data ,
Pay Equity Laws ,
Presidential Nominations ,
Secretary of Labor ,
Trump Administration ,
Wage & Hour Division (WHD)
When the news broke Friday afternoon that Labor Secretary Alexander Acosta would be resigning from his post, employers across the country began wondering what this transition would mean for them. You may have even heard...more
7/15/2019
/ Affirmative Action ,
Corporate Counsel ,
Department of Labor (DOL) ,
EEO-1 ,
Employer Liability Issues ,
Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) ,
Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) ,
Filing Deadlines ,
Foreign Workers ,
Immigration Enforcement ,
Joint Employers ,
OFCCP ,
OLMS ,
OSHA ,
Pay Data ,
Pay Equity Laws ,
Resignation ,
Secretary of Labor ,
USCIS ,
Wage and Hour ,
Workplace Safety
The EEOC just announced that, in order to comply with a recent shocking court order, most employers will need to turn over compensation information from both 2017 and 2018 when they submit their Component 2 pay data with...more
In a court filing Wednesday, April 3, 2019, the EEOC suggested that employers have until September 30, 2019 to turn over pay data as part of their revised EEO-1 reporting obligations. It is uncertain yet as to whether the...more
Late yesterday, the Office of Federal Contractor Compliance Programs (OFCCP) released its Corporate Scheduling Announcement List (CSAL) in the OFCCP FOIA Library... Previously, contractors were provided CSAL letters by mail,...more
Despite a recent court ruling resurrecting the requirement that employers turn over compensation information along with standard demographic figures, the EEOC this morning unveiled its 2019 EEO-1 reporting system that fails...more
The Supreme Court took the unusual step today of vacating a 2018 federal appeals court decision because one of the judges counted in the majority was deceased by the time the decision was published, reversing a landmark pay...more
Employers received a bit of good news Friday as the federal government announced the deadline for submitting their EEO-1 reports has been extended until May 31. Although originally due in just a few short weeks—on March...more
As of Saturday, the current federal government shutdown became the longest in our nation’s history—and employers are starting to feel the sting. While the peculiarities of the federal budget process meant that this shutdown...more
1/14/2019
/ Anti-Deficiency Act ,
Department of Homeland Security (DHS) ,
Department of Justice (DOJ) ,
Department of Labor (DOL) ,
E-Verify ,
Employment Discrimination ,
Employment Eligibility Verification ,
Employment Litigation ,
Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) ,
Federal Budget ,
Federal Contractors ,
Foreign Nationals ,
Foreign Workers ,
Government Agencies ,
Government Shutdown ,
Hiring & Firing ,
Immigration Procedures ,
Labor Relations ,
NLRB ,
OSHA ,
Trump Administration ,
USCIS ,
Visas ,
Wage and Hour ,
Workplace Safety