ASE reviews numerous employee handbooks each year. We recommend that employers review their handbook at least annually to ensure it remains compliant and accurately reflects the organization’s current practices and policies.

Policies that prohibit recording or taking pictures or video recordings in the workplace are still pretty common in handbooks. Employers may have valid reasons for implementing these policies, such as preventing the capture of confidential or proprietary business information.

Last week the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) announced (5/1 Field Assistance Bulletin) it will stop enforcing its Biden-era regulations on determining what an independent contractor (IC) is and go back to a standard set in mid-2008. The Biden-era rule laid out six criteria to determine independent contractor status. This rule made it harder to classify a worker as an independent contractor.

For many positions to be exempt under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) it must meet three tests to be Executive, Administrative, or Professional (EAP) exempt. Exempt positions do not have to be paid overtime at time and one-half (1.5x) or keep records of hours worked. The three exemption tests are:

As a life-long employer advocate, I have to admit to the feeling of schadenfreude when I hear of the always sanctimonious unions getting caught violating the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) with their own employees. Unions love to catch and hold employers up as unfair when they allegedly violate labor law so it’s somewhat satisfying to see them reap what they sow.

Last month in our March 21st Conversations with Mike and Tony, along with some recent changes to OSHA penalties and recent data on job injuries, we also talked about the fact that David Keeling was nominated by President Trump to head the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA). His confirmation by the Senate is still pending, but what might Mr. Keeling consider changing?

This past January President Biden signed the 21st Century Veterans Healthcare and Benefits Improvement Act. This new law expands protections under the Uniformed Services Employment and Reemployment Act, more commonly known as USERRA (passed in 1994). USERRA is the basis for many employers’ Military Leave policies. USERRA prohibits employers from discriminating against, harassing (allowing) or retaliating against veterans and service members, and provides reemployment and other rights...

Summer is approaching fast. Many employers employ minors during their summer break from school. Employers should keep in mind that youth employment generally requires a work permit – even when school is on summer break. If you have work for a person 17 years or younger, be aware of the employer’s obligations under the Youth Employment Standards Act. (1978 PA 90, MCL 445.106)

In a recent case decided by the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals (Michigan is in this district), the Plaintiff worked at a social services agency as their Director of Social Services. She had recently been hired and raised several complaints about management, including concerns that patient care and staff performance were inadequate. Over time, her internal concerns grew and eventually reached the Agency’s Executive Director. 

Increasingly, employers are requiring employees to return from remote work. The business benefits cited most often include strengthening the organization’s culture and increasing productivity. CCH HR Insights reports on a recent Express Employment Professional-Harris Poll survey that cited workplace friendships could be an “accelerator” to moving employees back to the office.

Some recent developments are offering a glimpse of what the bizzarro world of the Republican Trump administration and his union support looks like. Most recently, is UAW President Shaun Fain giving warm public kudos to President Trump over his tariff initiatives; second is the incoming Labor Secretary who is also a Republican but supported the radical PRO Act that is being reintroduced again; and thirdly, is new labor legislation introduced just last week that would shorten the time between...

Late into the evening on Thursday February 20th, just before the Earned Sick Time Act and Minimum Wage Act were to take effect, the Michigan Legislature amended the two laws. The amended laws were brought about by two ballot initiatives in 2017 and 2018 that were passed by the Legislature and signed by Governor Snyder at the end of their terms. This “adopt and amend” action was found unconstitutional by the Michigan Supreme Court last summer. The Court ruled that the original two...

As 2024 ended, the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) published its annual report on workplace fatalities and injuries that occurred the prior year (2023). There was a total of 5,283 workplace deaths that year. Fatalities dropped 3.7% from 2022. This report provides a lot of details, some of which we report below. More complete information is available at the BLS website.

Michigan’s 102^nd legislative session is scheduled to end January 8, 2025. However, the House seems to have adjourned for the year and there are just a couple more days that the Senate is scheduled to be in session.

Michigan is not alone with its paid sick time law. As you wrestle to prepare a new policy to meet Michigan’s Earned Sick Time Act (ESTA), take heart that currently there are16 other states as well as the District of Columbia that require employers to provide some form of paid sick leave to their employees.

Last month the Federal Court in East Texas vacated the U.S. Department of Labor’s (DOL) salary level test regulations. This DOL rule had moved the weekly salary level test to $844/week ($43,888/yr.) as of July 1^st this year and had scheduled a second increase that would have taken the salary level test up to $1,128/week or $58,656/yr. on January 1, 2025.

Two National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) decisions earlier this month continue the Biden Administration’s and the NLRB’s war against employer rights. The NLRB held in Amazon.com Services LLC (11/13/24) that employers violate worker rights when they require employees to attend meetings (even while being paid) to hear the employer’s side in a union organizing campaign. The second anti-employer decision the NLRB handed down this month held that employers commit an unfair...

On Friday the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas struck down the Department of Labor’s 2024 Exempt Employee Salary Level test (White-Collar tests) which had increased the salary level to $844/week ($43,888/yr) in July of this year with a scheduled second increase to $1,128/week ($58,656/yr) January 1, 2025. This ruling returns the salary level test to the level it was before July 1st – $684/week ($35,568/yr). 

“Elections have consequences.” Ever since that was said by the then newly elected President Barack Obama (it may have been said before that, but that is the first time this author heard it), it has always seemed more of a threat than anything else, and it was just recently heard again from the Trump side, and if nothing else, it warns of change.

Over the past few years, the federal Government has been giving tax dollars to failing union pension funds. We have written on this in the past, and the practice is continuing up through today (Failing Union Pension Funds Getting Huge Influx of Money from the PBGC. EPTW 2/7/2023). Last Friday the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation (PBGC) announced four more union pension funds that will receive upwards of $811.6 million. This latest tranche of money is going to four unions that for various...

For some time now the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) has been facing questions from employers and others about its authority based upon the way it is structured as a government agency. There are various lawsuits around the country challenging the existence of the NLRB because its system of adjudication is seen as possibly unconstitutional. Last week, in a case brought on the west side of Michigan, a federal judge ruled that the NLRB’s protection of its judges under “just...

Effective January 1, 2025, employers that wish to maintain the FLSA exemption for certain jobs will have to increase salaries from a minimum of $844/week/$43,888/yr, to $1,128/week/$58,656/yr. This next increase is obviously the bigger of the two regulatory changes and may compel some employers to choose not to increase the salary levels and in turn convert those positions to non-exempt. This will mean they will become overtime eligible, and certain recordkeeping activity will now be...

Although employers are presently out from under the Federal Trade Commission’s rules against non-compete agreements, the National Labor Relation Board (NLRB) is now challenging such agreements, under of all things, the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA). NLRB General Counsel, Jennifer Abruzzo, asserts that by restricting a worker’s right to take a job with a competitor of their employer, non-compete agreements are a threat to the free labor market. They stifle employees’...

Several years ago, Michigan corrected a labor wrong by removing a requirement that home care givers under Michigan’s Medicaid program be in a union. Many of these workers who had to pay union dues were family members receiving a stipend for providing those care services to people in their own family.

There are less than five weeks until our national and local elections. Are politics and political discussions causing disruptions in your workplace? What are an employer’s rights to address worker political discussions that may be getting out of hand?