EverythingPeople This Week!

There is a growing argument that there should be three types of people considered under COVID-19 protocols:  unvaccinated, vaccinated, and previously infected.  This argument claims that because they were infected, they have the antibodies similar to vaccinations, and in certain studies, better protected than those who are vaccinated.

U.S. Department of Health & Human Service (HHS) issued additional guidance concerning how HIPAA rules intertwine with the COVID environment.  The guidance provides greater clarity to employers as to when HIPAA does and does not apply in various situations. The following is a rundown of the guidance.

Last month, the Supreme Court declined to take up the issue of whether the nation's schools must allow students to use the bathroom that matches their gender identities.  In that case, a 4th Circuit Court of Appeals decision, the court ruled in favor of Gavin Grimm, a transgender man who sued his Virginia high school for barring him from using the boys’ restroom.  Grimm stated that “[b]eing forced to use the nurse’s room, a private bathroom, and the girl’s...

The new Guidance from the Safer Federal Workplace Task Force (“Task Force”) issued on September 24, 2021, in response to the President’s Executive Order 14042, Ensuring Adequate COVID Safety Protocols for Federal Contractors, outlines the following requirements for federal contractors and subcontractors:

After four years under a republican administration, the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) is now shifting back to the priorities of the Obama Administration.  Unionization is favored, and the NLRB will be pushing the envelope to expand the traditional boundaries of the NLRB.  NLRB General Counsel, Jennifer A. Abruzzo, has issued her first memo—Mandatory Submissions to Advice Memorandum (GC 21-04), which lays out a clear agenda as to the priorities of the Office...

Last week, President Biden directed OSHA to issue an Emergency Temporary Standard (ETS) that will require all employers with 100 or more employees to ensure that their employees are either fully vaccinated or that the unvaccinated employees produce a negative test weekly before coming to work. The ETS will also require these employers to provide paid time off for their employees to get vaccinated or to recover if they are “under the weather post-vaccination.”

Henry Ford came up with the number one management idea of the 20th Century: pay the employees what they are worth.  On January 5, 1914, Henry Ford doubled his workers wages to $5 a day, which brings us back to the early days of ASE’s history as the labor exchange providing workers to Ford Motor Company.  By increasing the wages, it paid not only for the way the work was being done, but also valued the time the worker spent in a monotonous setting.  It also gave the...

Recently Delta Airlines announced that it will charge employees on the company health plan a $200 per month additional charge if they fail to get vaccinated against COVID-19. 

Delta argues that the costs of hospital stays for COVID total, on average, about $40,000-$50,000 per incident thus driving up healthcare costs for all employees.

 

As ASE has written about previously, a vaccine mandate is allowed under law, except in jurisdictions which do not allow it, e.g. Montana. In addition, vaccine mandates in a union environment is still under question as to whether it has to be negotiated.  But employers are not flocking to this mandate.  In a recent ASE survey of 143 Michigan organizations, a majority of those surveyed (74.1%) continue to encourage vaccinations, but not mandate them.  Yet, the Delta variant...

With all who are unemployed and those who are actively looking for a new job while working, jobs are not being filled.  There are a reported 9 million jobs available.  Economists are calling the new paradigm “The Great Job Mismatch.”  What is driving this trend?

As COVID changed our work patterns, there is a growing movement to see whether the 5-day a week work cycle is effective or not.  Longer hours and connectivity and burnout are becoming a staple of the workplace.  Further, there is a question of productivity in the long term when workers are so stretched.  Compressed workweeks are used by many organizations.

More and more employers, including the federal government are considering either vaccine mandates or knowledge of an employee’s vaccination status.  Even President Biden will require vaccinations or knowledge of it for all government employees.  In the news recently, Dak Prescott, quarterback of the Dallas Cowboys, and Congressperson Marjorie Taylor Green both cited HIPAA as a reason to not disclose.  How should employers respond when employees yell out HIPAA?

On April 27, 2021, President Biden signed an Executive Order (EO 14026), “Increasing the Minimum Wage for Federal Contractors.” The EO would set the hourly minimum wage paid to workers performing work on or in connection with covered federal contracts to $15.00 per hour, beginning January 30, 2022.  In order to do so, implementing regulations would have to be promulgated.

It’s neither the one job for life nor the one specific career path for life that motivates the new workforce.  Today, particularly millennials (aged between 25 and 40 years old) and Gen Z (up to 24 years old), are rejecting the concept of one full-time job and a single boss in favor of something that’s being dubbed polywork, or having multiple jobs at once.

The benefits of remote work, when logistically feasible, are immense.  Employees have more flexibility with their day, and employers have found that employees tend to work longer.  It has forced employers to rethink the future workplace. But there are drawbacks.