Who's been naughty and who's been nice in labor and employment law? Here are my picks for 2015. Feel free to add your own in the comments.
NAUGHTY!
The National Labor Relations Board, for being naughty in too many ways to mention. Its rules on employer handbook policies, including confidentiality and social media, are unrealistic and almost impossible for employers to legally follow ...
NOTE FROM ROBIN: Ellen Kearns is head of our Boston Office and co-chair of the firm's Wage-Hour Practice Group.
The new overtime white-collar exemption rule will be issued approximately July 2016, according to the U.S. Department of Labor's fall 2015 regulatory agenda, which the Office of Management and Budget published just before Thanksgiving.
I had earlier reported that ...
NOTE FROM ROBIN: This post is by Ellen Kearns, head of our Boston Office and co-chair of our Wage and Hour Practice Group.
You have probably heard by now that Patricia Smith, Solicitor of Labor, announced at the annual labor and employment conference of the American Bar Association that a final rule on the white-collar exemptions to the overtime regulations will not be issued until late ...
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 ...
"An apple a day keeps the doctor lawyer away." Here are five easy and inexpensive things that employers can do to minimize their risk of being sued and maximize their chances of victory if they do get sued. None of these involve major expense, or even the use of lawyers.
1. Err on the side of treating your workers as (a) non-exempt and (b) "employees." Let this be your default ...
For a guy who doesn't tweet, Jim Coleman - head of Constangy's Metro Washington D.C. Office and co-chair of our Wage and Hour Practice Group - has suddenly become an awfully big Twitter celeb.
(Or anyway, as big a Twitter celeb as employment lawyers ever become.)
It all started last weekend, when I got a tweet from Suzanne Lucas, the Evil HR Lady:
As I told Suzanne, I really wasn't sure, so ...
Uh-oh. Lawyers who do document review may not be exempt from the overtime requirements of the Fair Labor Standards Act, according to a court decision issued yesterday.
Large law firms and legal services vendors often hire stables of contract lawyers to do document review in big cases. Sometimes, the lawyers who do the review are actually reading and analyzing the documents in light of ...
Secretary of Labor Thomas Perez announced today that the U.S. Department of Labor has submitted a proposed rule on the white-collar FLSA overtime exemptions to the federal Office of Management and Budget, which means that the proposed revisions to the overtime regulations could be made public before long.
Although the specifics are not known at this time, the proposed rule is ...
By David Phippen of our Metro D.C. Office.
While the year is still young, here are 15 New Year's resolutions that employers may want to make:
1. Make sure your "independent contractors" are really independent contractors. "Independent contractors" are under scrutiny by the Internal Revenue Service, the U.S. Department of Labor, the National Labor Relations Board, state and local agencies, plaintiffs' lawyers, and union organizers. A misclassification can cost you back taxes, back pay (including overtime), and back benefits, as well as penalties and interest.
2. Review your email policies. The NLRB recently found that employees generally have a right to use employer email systems during non-working time in support of union organizing and concerted activity. The Board's decision means that many employer email use policies, as currently drafted, would probably be found to violate the National Labor Relations Act if an unfair labor practice charge were filed or a union tried to organize employees and argued that the employer's email policy interfered with the organizing efforts. In light of the new "quickie election" rule that the NLRB issued last month, both union and non-union employers would be well advised to review their email policies and revise as needed. (The "quickie election" rule is scheduled to take effect on April 14, but the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and other employer groups, including the Society for Human Resources Management, filed suit on Monday seeking to block the rule.)
It's not too late to register for our webinar on the NLRB's new rules on "quickie elections" and employee email use. The webinar, featuring labor attorneys Tim Davis, Jonathan Martin, and Dan Murphy, is from noon to 1 p.m. Eastern tomorrow (January 8). Be there, or be square!
David Smith of Constangy’s OSHA practice group is co-author of this post.
The federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration and the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration are tag-teaming transportation employers. They’ve signed a Memorandum of Understanding in which they agree to share information about allegations of safety, coercion, and retaliation.
And ...
Robin Shea has 30 years' experience in employment litigation, including Title VII and the Age Discrimination in Employment Act, the Americans with Disabilities Act (including the Amendments Act).
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