What Happened? The Department of Labor just issued a new proposed rule that would make it easier for workers to be classified as independent contractors.
What Does It Mean? The proposed test – which would take effect...more
It’s hard to keep up with all the recent changes to labor and employment law. While the law always seems to evolve at a rapid pace, there have been an unprecedented number of changes for the past few years—and this past month...more
9/10/2020
/ Department of Labor (DOL) ,
Employer Liability Issues ,
Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) ,
Families First Coronavirus Response Act (FFCRA) ,
Independent Contractors ,
Medical Leave ,
Misclassification ,
NLRB ,
Paid Leave ,
Payroll Taxes ,
Reasonable Accommodation ,
Remote Working ,
Telecommuting ,
Unemployment Benefits ,
Wage and Hour ,
Wrongful Death
In a move sure to frustrate employers and usher in a wave of confusion, a New York federal court judge just struck down critical portions of the Labor Department’s new joint employer rule that went into effect a few months...more
Just a few hours before they were subject to a court order forcing them to transform all of their drivers from independent contractors to employees, a California appeals court spared the nation’s two largest rideshare...more
Gig economy companies received bad news yesterday when yet another federal appeals court ruled that delivery drivers – even independent contractors – can escape otherwise valid arbitration agreements. This is now the third...more
8/20/2020
/ Amazon ,
Appeals ,
Arbitration ,
Arbitration Agreements ,
Corporate Counsel ,
Delivery Drivers ,
Employment Litigation ,
Exempt-Employees ,
Federal Arbitration Act ,
Gig Economy ,
Independent Contractors ,
Misclassification
Last week’s successful effort by California’s Attorney General to obtain an injunction forcing two ride-sharing giants to reclassify their drivers as employees may be the beginning of a trend that threatens to create a new...more
A report by Ben Penn in Thursday’s Bloomberg Law casts serious doubt about whether the Department of Labor will proceed with a misclassification rule before the end of this presidential term. We reported last month that the...more
8/14/2020
/ Department of Labor (DOL) ,
Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) ,
Final Rules ,
Gig Economy ,
Hiring & Firing ,
Independent Contractors ,
Joe Biden ,
Labor Regulations ,
Misclassification ,
Presidential Elections ,
Trump Administration ,
Wage and Hour
In an op-ed appearing in yesterday’s N.Y. Times, Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi echoes what we have been saying on this blog for quite some time – that it is time for federal and state lawmakers to tear down the existing...more
A California state court judge just handed a potentially groundbreaking loss to gig economy companies across the state by granting an injunction forcing the two biggest ride-sharing companies in the nation to classify their...more
Supreme Court decisions are often the most challenging pieces of legal guidance to understand. They are rarely straightforward and usually contain so much analysis that it becomes hard to get to the bottom of what was...more
8/10/2020
/ ADEA ,
Affordable Care Act ,
Arbitration ,
Arbitration Agreements ,
Babb v Wilkie ,
Benefit Plan Sponsors ,
Bostock v Clayton County Georgia ,
Civil Rights Act ,
Comcast Corp. v National Association of African American-Owned Media ,
Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA) ,
Confidential Information ,
Contraceptive Coverage Mandate ,
Corporate Counsel ,
DACA ,
Department of Homeland Security v Regents of the University of California ,
Employee Benefits ,
Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA) ,
Employment Discrimination ,
Intel Corp. Investment Policy Committee v. Sulyma ,
LGBTQ ,
Little Sisters of the Poor Saints Peter and Paul Home v Pennsylvania ,
Ministerial Exception ,
Our Lady of Guadalupe School v Morrissey-Berru ,
Race Discrimination ,
Religious Discrimination ,
Religious Institutions ,
Retirement Plan ,
SCOTUS ,
Sexual Orientation ,
Sexual Orientation Discrimination ,
Title VII ,
Trade Secrets ,
Transgender ,
Trump Administration
A federal appeals court just handed Grubhub – and gig economy companies in general – a pivotal victory by narrowly interpreting an exception allowing certain transportation workers (including independent contractors) to...more
8/10/2020
/ Appeals ,
Arbitration ,
Arbitration Agreements ,
Delivery Drivers ,
Employment Litigation ,
Exempt-Employees ,
Gig Economy ,
GrubHub ,
Independent Contractors ,
Interstate Commerce ,
Misclassification ,
New Prime v Oliveira
The Department of Labor issued several sets of new guidance materials to employers as return-to-work, remote work, and wage and hour issues remain hot – and sometimes confusing – topics. The agency recognizes that the...more
7/24/2020
/ Coronavirus/COVID-19 ,
Corporate Counsel ,
Department of Labor (DOL) ,
Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) ,
Families First Coronavirus Response Act (FFCRA) ,
Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) ,
Furloughs ,
Hiring & Firing ,
New Guidance ,
Paid Leave ,
Paid Time Off (PTO) ,
Remote Working ,
Return-to-Work Agreements ,
Sick Leave ,
Wage and Hour
The Department of Labor just provided employers a sign that it might be open to altering the Family and Medical Leave Act regulations and guidance, perhaps resolving some of the more difficult aspects of the law that cause...more
7/22/2020
/ Comment Period ,
Corporate Counsel ,
Department of Labor (DOL) ,
Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) ,
Information Requests ,
Intermittent Leave ,
Labor Regulations ,
Medical Certification Requests ,
Opinion Letter ,
Public Comment ,
Serious Health Conditions
As an increasing number of businesses begin to require face coverings in their facilities – whether as a result of a local legal mandate or in the interest of public safety – there has been a corresponding increase in the...more
The U.S. Supreme Court declined to weigh in on the question of whether employers can use prior salary history as a defense in equal pay claims, leaving an open question around the country about whether such a justification is...more
Nearly half of all COVID-19-related workplace lawsuits that have been initiated between employees and employers were filed in the past month, according to data collected by the Fisher Phillips COVID-19 Employment Litigation...more
7/6/2020
/ Class Action ,
Coronavirus/COVID-19 ,
Corporate Counsel ,
Employer Liability Issues ,
Employment Discrimination ,
Employment Litigation ,
Hiring & Firing ,
Paid Leave ,
Remote Working ,
Retaliation ,
Wage and Hour ,
Workplace Safety
The formal regulatory notice released July 1st, 2020, is so short and sterile that the average gig economy business could be forgiven for ignoring it: “The Department of Labor is proposing a regulation for determining...more
In a budget deal finalized today and expected to be approved by state lawmakers in a matter of days, the California state legislature has reached an agreement that will see $17.5 million allocated toward enforcement of AB-5...more
San Francisco ratcheted up the pressure on California gig economy companies by not only filing a misclassification lawsuit against DoorDash, but promising that more such litigation was to come against other companies. Upon...more
6/18/2020
/ ABC Test ,
Corporate Counsel ,
DoorDash ,
Employee Definition ,
Employer Liability Issues ,
Gig Economy ,
Independent Contractors ,
Misclassification ,
San Francisco ,
State Labor Laws ,
Unfair Labor Practices
Gig economy workers performing food delivery services in Seattle will receive an extra $2.50 per delivery during the COVID-19 pandemic thanks to a first-in-the-nation hazard pay law unanimously passed by the City Council on...more
In its latest round of updates to a series of COVID-19 Frequently Asked Questions, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission just warned employers they cannot prevent older workers from returning to work even if they want...more
6/12/2020
/ ADEA ,
Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) ,
Anti-Harassment Policies ,
Caregivers ,
Coronavirus/COVID-19 ,
Disability Discrimination ,
Employer Liability Issues ,
Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) ,
Infectious Diseases ,
Pregnancy Discrimination ,
Reasonable Accommodation ,
Remote Working ,
Workplace Harassment Guidance
I was able to virtually attend a session of Albany Law School’s 2020 Warren M. Anderson Legislative Seminar Series last week on “The Gig Economy,” bringing together some of the nation’s foremost thought leaders on the subject...more
6/8/2020
/ ABC Test ,
Employee Definition ,
Employer Liability Issues ,
Freelance Workers ,
Gig Economy ,
Hiring & Firing ,
Independent Contractors ,
Labor Regulations ,
Misclassification ,
State and Local Government ,
State Labor Laws ,
Wage and Hour
A federal court judge in Massachusetts just rejected Lyft’s attempt to escape the reach of Prong B of the ABC Test, indicating it was “likely” that its rideshare drivers are employees and not independent contractors. The news...more
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
Not so long ago – 2019, to be exact – in a state not so far, far away – California – lawmakers passed the nation’s most controversial misclassification law to sweep as many independent contractors into employee status as...more