After a series of preliminary, narrowly decided, and conflicting court decisions concerning requests for preliminary injunctions (see August 20, 2024 Alert), a federal district court in Texas has now entirely set aside the...more
8/23/2024
/ Administrative Law Judge (ALJ) ,
Confidentiality Agreements ,
Employment Contract ,
Federal Bans ,
Federal Trade Commission (FTC) ,
Injunctions ,
NLRA ,
NLRB ,
Non-Compete Agreements ,
Restrictive Covenants ,
Texas ,
Unfair Competition
As the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) seeks to ban nearly all employee non-compete agreements in the United States (see April 25, 2024 Alert), the question of whether the agency has the power to do that is dividing federal...more
The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is seeking to ban nearly all employee non-compete agreements in the United States [see April 25, 2024 Alert]. Almost immediately after the FTC issued its final rule, lawsuits challenging...more
When, if ever, are college athletes “employees” who are entitled to compensation rather than simply students playing games? The United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit recently shed a little more light on the...more
Corporate policies on diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) are being subjected to increased scrutiny and legal challenges even as the US workforce becomes more diverse on nearly every measure—race, sex, gender identity,...more
The National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) governs private sector labor/management relations in the United States. Under the NLRA, employers have certain responsibilities and restrictions with regard to their employees,...more
11/20/2023
/ Collective Bargaining ,
Compensation & Benefits ,
Department of Labor (DOL) ,
Employment Contract ,
Franchises ,
Franchisors ,
Independent Contractors ,
Job Duties ,
Joint Employers ,
NLRA ,
NLRB ,
Wage and Hour ,
Work Schedules
The United States Supreme Court made headlines recently by ruling that colleges and universities may no longer take race into account when making admissions decisions. At a time when the population is growing ever more...more
7/10/2023
/ Affirmative Action ,
Civil Rights Act ,
College Admissions ,
Colleges ,
Diversity ,
Employer Liability Issues ,
Employment Discrimination ,
Equal Protection ,
SCOTUS ,
Students for Fair Admissions v Harvard College ,
Students for Fair Admissions v University of North Carolina ,
Title VII
The National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) provides a host of labor-related rights for private-sector employees, including the right to form or join unions, the ability to compel employers to collectively bargain with the unions...more
6/22/2023
/ Antitrust Violations ,
Collective Bargaining ,
Common Law Test ,
Employee Definition ,
Entrepreneurs ,
Independent Contractors ,
Misclassification ,
NLRA ,
NLRB ,
NLRB General Counsel ,
Unions
Almost two years ago, President Joe Biden issued Executive Order 14036, which broadly addresses promoting competition in the American economy. Among the measures considered in that executive order was greater scrutiny of...more
In the fall of 2021, President Biden issued Executive Order 14042 (EO 14042), which, among other things, directed federal agencies to require federal contractors and subcontractors to mandate that most of their employees be...more
On Thursday, January 13, 2022, the U.S. Supreme Court issued a stay of the Occupational Safety and Health Administration’s (OSHA) COVID-19 vaccine-or-test Emergency Temporary Standard (ETS). This halts OSHA’s enforcement of...more
1/20/2022
/ Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) ,
Constitutional Challenges ,
Coronavirus/COVID-19 ,
Employer Mandates ,
Executive Orders ,
Federal Contractors ,
General Duty Clause ,
Healthcare Workers ,
Joe Biden ,
OSH Act ,
OSHA ,
SCOTUS ,
Vaccinations ,
Virus Testing ,
Workplace Safety
Judge R. Stan Baker of the US District Court for the Southern District of Georgia issued an order (Order) on December 7, 2021, enjoining the federal government “from enforcing the vaccine mandate for federal contractors and...more
At the direction of the Biden administration, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) issued an interim final rule (CMS Rule) on November 5, 2021, requiring COVID-19 vaccinations for workers in most health care...more
11/11/2021
/ Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) ,
Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) ,
Coronavirus/COVID-19 ,
Covered Employees ,
Covered Employer ,
Federal Contractors ,
Health Care Providers ,
Healthcare Workers ,
OSHA ,
Policies and Procedures ,
Religious Accommodation ,
Vaccinations
The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) released its highly anticipated draft COVID-19 vaccination emergency temporary standard (Vaccine ETS) yesterday. As anticipated, the rule requires most employers with...more
11/8/2021
/ Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) ,
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) ,
Coronavirus/COVID-19 ,
Exempt-Employees ,
Federal Contractors ,
Federal Employees ,
Federal Register ,
Masks ,
OSHA ,
Recordkeeping Requirements ,
Religious Exemption ,
Reporting Requirements ,
Vaccinations ,
Virus Testing
When a worker is classified as an employee, a panoply of local, state, and federal laws regulate many facets of the relationship between the worker and the person or entity the worker serves. When a worker is not an...more
On July 9, 2021, President Biden issued Executive Order 14036, which broadly addresses “promoting competition in the American economy.” In the run-up to and aftermath of this action, many news outlets reported that the...more
As of June 30, 2021, almost 155 million Americans, 46.7% of the population, had been fully vaccinated against COVID-19. The vast majority of those individuals are over age 18, and more than 57% of adults over age 18 in the...more
While union activity remains at near record lows in the private sector, the new administration has sent a strong early signal that it hopes to change that situation and that it will not be patient in taking steps it thinks...more
The Families First Coronavirus Response Act (FFCRA) established two limited federal mandates to protect employees of employers with fewer than 500 employees who needed to be absent from work for reasons related to the...more
Last month’s controversial Executive Order, 13950, will require federal contracts awarded after November 22, 2020, to contain a clause by which contractors agree to refrain from inculcating “race or sex stereotyping” or “race...more
A federal judge in New York recently invalidated several parts of the U.S. Department of Labor’s (“USDOL”) regulations related to the Emergency Paid Sick Leave Act and the Emergency Family and Medical Leave Expansion Act,...more
8/7/2020
/ Coronavirus/COVID-19 ,
Department of Labor (DOL) ,
Families First Coronavirus Response Act (FFCRA) ,
Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) ,
Health Care Providers ,
Labor Regulations ,
Paid Leave ,
Paid Time Off (PTO) ,
Required Documentation ,
Sick Leave ,
Wage and Hour
On June 19 and June 22, 2020, the Small Business Administration (“SBA”) issued new revisions to their First Interim Final Rule concerning the Paycheck Protection Program (“PPP”). The Revised Interim Final Rule and the...more
On May 22, 2020, the U.S. Small Business Administration (“SBA”) released two Interim Final Rules (“IFRs”) providing additional guidance on Payment Protection Program (“PPP”) loan forgiveness rules and the procedure by which...more
The federal government has committed $670 billion dollars in forgivable loans to small businesses under the Paycheck Protection Program (“PPP”), which was part of the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Stability Act (the...more
After decades of steady decline in union activity, the number and magnitude of strikes in the United States increased sharply in both 2018 and 2019, rising to their highest levels since the early 1980s. Relatively successful...more