DOL budget maintains current spending levels:  The much anticipated budget appropriations for the Department of Labor and its divisions were included within the omnibus. The DOL essentially maintained its current funding levels for FY19, receiving a 1% increase to $12.2B. The Trump Administration previously proposed a 10% budget cut for the Department.  Among DOL’s divisions and related independent agencies, the following budgets were allocated: Wage and Hour: $227M (requested $230M); OSHA: $553M (requested $549M); OFCCP: $103M (requested $91M); MSHA: $374M (requested $376M); OLMS: $38M (requested $46.6M); NLRB $274M (requested $249M); and EEOC: $380M (requested $363.8M). The budget also rejects the proposed merger of the OFCCP into the EEOC.  The proposed reorganization of the NLRB field offices by General Counsel Peter Robb was predicated on the administration’s proposed budget cut. The Board has stated that the reorganization would be subject to public comment. With the restoration of the proposed NLRB budget cuts, it is unknown now whether the reorganization plans will move ahead.  Source: Seyfarth Shaw 3/22/18

Worker Centers under investigation by US DOL: In recent years, many “worker centers” have been popping up around the country. As reported by the Wall Street Journal, the centers can act as a “backdoor approach to union organizing.” The Journal specifically describes them as follows: “The community groups, called worker centers, are often backed by unions. But they aren’t considered ‘labor organizations’ by law because they don’t have continuing bargaining relationships with employers. That gives them more freedom in their use of picketing and other tactics than unions, which are constrained by national labor laws.” Various business groups have cried foul over this “backdoor approach,” and it appears the DOL is now looking into these concerns. Bloomberg BNA is reporting that the Labor Department has launched an investigation into a worker center in Minneapolis to evaluate whether it should be properly classified as a “labor organization” (i.e., a union). To the extent the DOL determines that is the case, it could have a significant ripple effect in light of the fact that there are hundreds of these centers located around the country. Accordingly, this is an important issue to watch on the union avoidance front.  Source:  Barnes & Thornburg LLP 3/20/18

EEOC General Counsel nominated: President Trump has nominated Sharon Fast Gustafson to be General Counsel of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. That position has been vacant since David Lopez resigned in December 2016 to return to private practice. Ms. Gustafson is a solo practitioner in Arlington, Virginia, and she represented Peggy Young in the ground-breaking case Young v. UPS, in which the U.S. Supreme Court found that employers had to accommodate pregnancy and related conditions if it made accommodations in other circumstances. Source: Constangy Brooks Smith & Prophete LLP 3/20/18

Title III ADA website accessibility lawsuits continue to grow: Plaintiffs were very busy in 2017 filing ADA Title III lawsuits alleging that public accommodation websites are not accessible to individuals with disabilities.  In 2017, plaintiffs filed at least 814 federal lawsuits about allegedly inaccessible websites, including a number of putative class actions.  The numbers are conservative, as it is very likely that not every website accessibility lawsuit’s description contained the search terms utilized. New York and Florida led the way with more than 335 and 325 cases, respectively. Federal courts in Arizona (6), Georgia (9), Illinois (10), Massachusetts (15), New Hampshire (2), Michigan (1), New Jersey (4), Ohio (8), Pennsylvania (58), Puerto Rico (1), Texas (7), and Virginia (24) also had their share of website accessibility lawsuits.  Source: Seyfarth Shaw 1/2/18, 2/1/18

Self-Insured health plans show decrease in usage but increase by small employers: The percentage of covered workers enrolled in self-insured plans decreased between 2015 and 2016. Recent research on trends in self-insured health plans among private-sector establishments and workers reveals that this overall trend masks growth in self-insured options and enrollment among smaller establishments. While the percentages of smaller establishments with at least one self-insured plan did indeed increase between 2015 and 2016, self-insurance in large establishments declined.  The percentage of small establishments (less than 100 employees) offering self-insured plans rose materially from 14.2% in 2015 to 17.4% in 2016. However, for large establishments (500 or more employees), the percentage offering self-insured options declined from 80.4% to 78.5% over that same time period.  Source:  EBRI 3/12/18

Late again?  Here are some of the more interesting excuses:  It happens to the best of us: the alarm didn't go off, the car wouldn't start, the train was late — but some people have more unusual excuses for being late.  In general, the usual suspects are to blame for why employees are late to work: traffic (51 %), oversleeping (31%), bad weather (28%), too tired to get out of bed (23%), and forgetting something (13%).  When asked about the most outrageous excuses employees have given them for being late, employers shared the following:

·        It's too cold to work.

·        I had morning sickness (it was a man).

·        My coffee was too hot, and I couldn't leave until it cooled off.

·        An astrologer warned me of a car accident on a major highway, so I took all backroads, making me an hour late.

·        My dog ate my work schedule.

·        I was here, but I fell asleep in the parking lot.

·        My fake eyelashes were stuck together.

·        Although it has been five years, I forgot I did not work at my former employer's location and drove there on accident.

Think being a little late is ok?  Think again.  The majority of employers (60%) say they expect employees to be on time every day, and more than 2 in 5 (43%) have fired someone for being late – compared to 41% last year. By region, 48 % of employers in the South say they have fired workers for being late, followed by those in the Midwest (45%), West (42%), and Northeast (38%).  Source: CareerBuilder 3/22/18