President Trump’s decision to end the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program (DACA) established by President Obama by executive order in 2012 has impact on employers. The program now covers 787,580 people who have been approved for the program, according to the latest government figures. To be eligible, applicants had to have arrived in the US before age 16 and have lived here since June 15, 2007. They could not have been older than 30 when the Department of Homeland...
Good news for employers! On August 29, 2017, the Office of Management Budget’s (OMB) Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA) announced that the pay reporting requirement of the EEO-1 will be delayed and not required in the March 31, 2018 EEO-1 reporting cycle. This news was greeted as a sign of relief by the employer community. The standard EEO-1 report, though, will still be required for filing on March 31, 2018.
Earlier this month EPTW reported on a Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals decision in the employers favor upholding that employer’s clearly stated directions on reporting discrimination. The US Fifth Circuit issued another opinion at the end of July that also supported clearly written employer policies or rules and at the same time, pushed back at the pro-labor National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) rulings in the last few years.
With workplaces moving more to the open floor plan, a difficult issue is raising its head more and more. Whether its food odors like tuna, perfume, cologne, or body odor, the issue of scent allergies has grown among the workforce. In one case, retaliation and failure to properly accommodate cost an employer $3.3 million.
As previously reported in the EPTW, the Trump administration was going to publish a Request for Information (RFI) on the White-Collar Overtime Exemption. It did so on July 26, 2017. Previously, the Obama administration had published rules that would be effective December 1, 2017, that increased the exemption salary level test from $433/week up to $913/week with an escalation every three years. This would have dramatically impacted employers. Essentially most employees would...
Smart employers use employment applications to gather consistent data in a uniform format about their applicants. This allows for easier comparison of their backgrounds and skill sets in order to help make better hiring decisions. Some of the other benefits of using applications include gathering information that an applicant wouldn’t typically include on their resume such as reasons for leaving a prior employer and gaining a signoff regarding the accuracy of the information...
It's always a question to employers as to what extent off duty actions can be held against an employee. Certain situations may be easier than others to assess, such as an employee arrested for a crime. But what about an employee’s Facebook rantings?
In a highly unusual victory by the employer, Google beat back the Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs (OFCCP) attempt to force them to respond to an exhaustive data request. The case started as a regularly scheduled compliance review of Google’s headquarters by letter dated September 20, 2015. In the course of the audit indicators arose. Google had a $600,000 federal contract with the General Services Administration it won in 2014.
The US Department of Labor (DOL) is working toward rescinding its judicially enjoined overtime rules. These rules were published during the Obama Administration and dramatically increased the exemption salary level test from $433/week up to $913/week. It was intended to reduce the number of jobs that could be classified non-exempt by employers.
The republicans, who control the Michigan State Senate, introduced legislation last Wednesday to increase MIOSHA fines to maintain parity with the federal OSHA fine maximums. Why would our business friendly legislature do this? It appears not by choice, but by necessity, if MIOSHA is to remain compliant and independent from federal OSHA oversite.
Although seemingly far-fetched, a lawsuit which hit grocer Winn-Dixie concerning accessibility to its website should make HR take notice. A federal trial court in Florida ruled that Winn-Dixie violated Title III of the ADA by having a website that was not useable by plaintiff Juan Carlos Gil to download coupons, order prescriptions, and find store locations. Mr. Gil is blind and uses screen reader software to access websites. The judge ordered injunctive relief, including a...
Under the Obama Administration’s National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) and the Department of Labor (DOL), two sets of rules intended to tip the scales in favor of labor organizing were published in 2011 – the Quickie Election Rules and the Persuader Rules. One of them is going away.
Ban-the-Box laws were instituted with the idea that by delaying the point in the hiring process in which an employer can ask an applicant about conviction history, the applicants would have a fair chance at gaining employment, but do the laws work?
Under FMLA regulations, employers are required to provide multiple types of notices to the employee, when the employee requests FMLA leave. One of those notices is to provide the employee with information about the amount of time available under FMLA leave. Failure to do so could lead to unintended consequences for the employer.
Signaling the start of the Trump Administration’s rollback of employment and labor Obama era regulations, the Department of Labor announced it is withdrawing its two guidance letters that further defined the restrictions on engaging a worker as an independent contractor.