Yesterday, the Trump Administration released its proposed budget for Fiscal Year 2018, which runs from October 1, 2017, through September 30, 2018. Here are the highlights related to labor and employment law, and there are a BUNCH. The following is a compilation of a number of articles published in yesterday's edition of Bloomberg BNA's Daily Labor Report (paid subscription ...

Last week, I wrote about a report in Bloomberg BNA that the Trump Administration was thinking about letting the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission "absorb" the Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs. The idea had some appeal for me because both agencies enforce variants on federal prohibitions against discrimination. But I admitted that I hadn't thought it ...

NLRB candidates being vetted. Bloomberg BNA reported last night that President Trump has settled on two candidates to fill the two vacant seats on the National Labor Relations Board. One is William Emanuel, a shareholder in the Los Angeles Office of the management-side law firm Littler Mendelsohn. Here is a link to his firm bio. The other is Marvin Kaplan, counsel to a Commissioner ...

Lots going on in the Northeast these days!

From Massachusetts, Connor Cobean of our Boston Office has a discussion of a state Superior Court decision that allows employees to sue for back wages and treble damages if their employers violate the Sunday blue laws. (Employers covered by the blue laws have to pay time and a half to non-exempt employees who work on Sunday.)

And the New York ...

The employment law week in Trumpland started out a little slow, but now we're back in business.

Acosta looking good for confirmation as Secretary of Labor. In contrast to nominee Andrew Puzder, the outlook appears good for his successor nominee Alexander Acosta. Mr. Acosta seems to have bipartisan support in the Senate, and has even been endorsed by the International Union of ...

Dum-da-dum-dum!

Bloomberg BNA reports that the U.S. Department of Labor, which is the defendant in a lawsuit challenging the rule regarding white-collar exemptions to the overtime provisions of the Fair Labor Standards Act, has asked for an extension of time to allow "incoming leadership personnel adequate time to consider the issues."

You know what that means.

The ...

No one is immune from wage-hour payouts. Not even a Human Resources consultant.

California HR consulting firm TriNet has reportedly agreed to pay approximately $1 million in overtime and liquidated damages to 267 employees. The payment is in settlement of a wage-hour investigation conducted by the San Francisco office of the U.S. Department of Labor.

According to the DOL ...

Wild, wonderful West Virginia is going right-to-work.

Republicans in the state legislature passed the Workplace Freedom Act and yesterday overrode a veto by Democratic Gov. Earl Ray Tomblin. Also yesterday, the West Virginia Republicans overrode Gov. Tomblin's veto of legislation that repeals the state's prevailing wage law.

"Right to work" is often confused with "employment ...

To find out why there is so much wage-hour litigation, read my point-counterpoint interview with plaintiff's attorney Fran Rudich, published in the November 25 edition of Bloomberg BNA's FLSA Litigation Tracker.

(Reproduced with permission from FLSA Litigation Tracker, 2015 FLLTR 6 (Nov. 25, 2015). Copyright 2015 by The Bureau of National Affairs, Inc. (800-372-1033) <http://www.bna.com>)

Thanks ...

NOTE FROM ROBIN: This is the second in a series by David Smith of our Occupational Safety and Health Practice Group on some of the latest developments from the agency. 

Last week, I posted about OSHA's expected final rule on a public database of workplace injuries and illnesses. While that expected rule would require employers to submit their injury and illness records to ...