On May 19, 2020, OSHA issued an Updated Interim Enforcement Response Plan for Coronavirus Disease to address how the administration intends to handle COVID-19 related complaints, referrals and reports. At the same time, OSHA...more
Antitrust concerns aren’t always at top of mind for human resources professionals. However, the federal antitrust agencies, the Federal Trade Commission and Antitrust Division of the Department of Justice, remind us that...more
Employers long have been required to record and report work-related injuries and illnesses to OSHA. A new question in the pandemic environment is whether you have to record an employee who tests positive for COVID-19...more
On April 10, 2020, the Occupational Safety & Health Administration (OSHA) issued interim guidance for the enforcement of employer reporting requirements arising from COVID-19 illnesses that will remain in effect during the...more
The Department of Labor now has issued guidance, questions and answers, and a poster for those employers covered by the recently enacted Families First Coronavirus Response Act (FFCRA)...more
The National Labor Relations Board in recent weeks has continued to overturn Board decisions from President Obama’s administration. In United Parcel Service, Inc., the current Republican-controlled Board returned to a...more
When, if ever, is swearing at your supervisor or coworkers a federally protected activity? The National Labor Relations Board (Board) currently is reconsidering what constitutes protected activity under the National Labor...more
The EEOC’s revised EEO-1 form, which now includes employee pay data, must be filed for covered employers for calendar years 2017 and 2018 by September 30, 2019. Remember that EEO-1 forms are required of all employers with 100...more
OSHA Safety Retaliation – What Is It?
Virtually every employee protection law, federal or state, has some sort of anti-retaliation provision. The federal Occupational Safety and Health Act is no exception. The Occupational...more
2/28/2019
/ Accident Reports ,
Adverse Employment Action ,
Anti-Retaliation Provisions ,
Complaint Procedures ,
Department of Labor (DOL) ,
Employer Liability Issues ,
Employment Policies ,
OSHA ,
Protected Activity ,
Workplace Hazards ,
Workplace Injury ,
Workplace Safety
With minimum wage increasing at federal, state, and local levels and with wage and hour cases on the rise, we receive many questions about exemptions to overtime laws. One such exemption that does not get as much coverage as...more
News organizations this week are reporting again on President Trump’s so-called travel ban. But what exactly does that mean? We receive a lot of questions about the travel ban in the context of President Trump’s overall...more
Why the NLRB is in the News -
The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB or the Board), the federal agency responsible for enforcing the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA), was very active during the Obama administration in...more
Many “it was the worst day of my life” stories begin with a weather event. I will never forget sitting with a client in an early April morning mediation several years ago when she received a call on her cell phone. She was...more
About a year ago, the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB or Board) struck down another neutral employer workplace rule – this one against making unauthorized recordings in the workplace. The NLRB’s decision just was...more
President Obama and his EO’s -
Remember the Blacklisting Order that required federal contractors to provide a rap sheet with a proposal? No? Well, President Obama issued 275 Executive Orders during his two terms on...more
For our general industry employers, you have new fall protection standards. As the Occupational Safety and Health Administration uses the term, “general industry” means all employers not in construction, agriculture, or...more
Now that the election is over, many clients and friends are asking what labor and employment law might look like under the soon to be President Trump. Of course, no one can predict exactly what will happen in the coming term....more
11/22/2016
/ Affordable Care Act ,
Arbitration ,
Blacklist ,
Browning-Ferris Industries of California Inc. ,
Class Action ,
Class Action Arbitration Waivers ,
Collective Bargaining Agreements (CBA) ,
DACA ,
Department of Labor (DOL) ,
E-Verify ,
Employee Benefits ,
Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) ,
Executive Orders ,
Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) ,
Fair Pay and Safe Workplaces ,
Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) ,
Federal Arbitration Act ,
Federal Contractors ,
Federal Vacancies Reform Act ,
Form I-9 ,
Gender Identity ,
Health Insurance ,
Healthcare ,
Hiring & Firing ,
Immigrants ,
Immigration Reform ,
Joint Employers ,
Judicial Appointments ,
Labor Law Violations ,
LGBTQ ,
Marriage Equality ,
NLRA ,
NLRB ,
Obama Administration ,
OSHA ,
Parental Leave ,
Persuader Rules ,
Protected Class ,
Restroom Legislation ,
Right of First Refusal ,
Same-Sex Marriage ,
Sexual Orientation ,
Sick Leave ,
Transgender ,
Trump Administration ,
Unions ,
USCIS
Human resources professionals keep track of a number of laws and regulations administered by several different agencies. For the most part, HR departments have given little attention to federal antitrust law compliance. After...more
11/1/2016
/ Anti-Competitive ,
Antitrust Provisions ,
Competition ,
Department of Justice (DOJ) ,
Federal Trade Commission (FTC) ,
Hiring & Firing ,
Human Resources Professionals ,
Job Applicants ,
New Guidance ,
Non-Solicitation Agreements ,
Recruitment Policies ,
Wage-Fixing
As we all know by now, Department of Labor’s (DOL) new regulations regarding the “white-collar” exemptions to overtime go into effect on December 1. These regulations raise the weekly salary requirement for the executive,...more
As I was explaining to a client last week that just “sending her back to the temp agency” likely would not be a simple end to a complicated sexual harassment problem, the National Labor Relations Board issued yet another...more
Shocking acts of violence are reported in the press every day. Reading about bombers, gunmen, and rapists in schools and homes and nightclubs is almost unbearable. For us labor lawyers, workplace violence is particularly...more
The EEOC has proposed a new rule to revise the federal EEO-1 form to include employee pay data on filings beginning September 30, 2017. EEO-1s would have to include W-2 earnings for all employees within an EEO-1 job category...more
Worker classification issues are popping up in the news a lot again. This is because the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) is taking a more aggressive view on joint-employer standards under the National Labor Relations...more
10/2/2015
/ Browning-Ferris Industries of California Inc. ,
Classification ,
Common Law Test ,
Control Test ,
Department of Labor (DOL) ,
Economic Realities Test ,
Independent Contractors ,
IRS ,
Joint Employers ,
Misclassification ,
NLRB ,
Sole Proprietorship
Developments continue to come almost daily about misclassification of employees as independent contractors. Wage and hour cases, tax rulings, and discrimination charges all are part of the mix....more
Employees in Alabama, like in many other places, often are required to sign employment agreements, most of which contain future restrictions on certain activities. The menu items for these agreements usually include covenants...more