It’s onerous to maintain up with all of the latest modifications to labor and employment legislation. While the legislation at all times appears to evolve at a speedy tempo, there have been an unprecedented variety of modifications for the previous few years—and this previous month was no exception. In reality, there have been so many vital developments going down through the previous month that we had been as soon as once more pressured to develop our month-to-month abstract properly past the everyday “Top 10” listing. In order to just remember to keep on high of the newest modifications, here’s a fast overview of the Top 14 tales from final month that each one employers must find out about:
With the July 28 announcement that the nation’s financial numbers have declined for the second straight quarter, many employers are afraid of a attainable recession, or at the least a sustained financial downturn – and are questioning what they need to do to organize. After all, we’re coping with a declining inventory market, hovering inflation, and stories of hiring freezes. Meanwhile, your employees are in all probability on edge and little doubt coping with inflationary issues, including to the stress all of us really feel every day. What 4 choices must you contemplate to make sure you are positioning your group to climate the storm – and what three steps can you are taking to alleviate the inflationary pressure that your workforce is little doubt coping with?
With the uptick within the COVID-19 positivity charge because of the rising dominance of the BA.5 variant – regarded as probably the most transmissible but – beleaguered employers as soon as once more discover themselves within the place of confronting the politics and perils of implementing efficient COVID-19 mitigation methods. The improve is notable sufficient that it prompted the White House to difficulty a brand new reality sheet on July 12 outlining its technique to “manage BA.5,” together with boosters, free testing, free masks, and inspiring constructing house owners to implement air flow and filtration enhancements by means of the Clean Air in Buildings Challenge. While the positivity charge remains to be under January’s peak, growing case numbers and the doubling of hospitalizations since May are impacting employers’ obligations beneath steerage from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), from the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), and from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) and state and native well being departments. Employers ought to contemplate adopting this four-step plan.
Employers that proceed to check employees for COVID-19 ought to overview their insurance policies to make sure they adjust to up to date tips from the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC). In prior steerage, the EEOC broadly allowed employers to display employees for COVID-19 with out operating afoul of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) because of the state of the pandemic. In revised tips, nevertheless, the company stated you possibly can proceed to manage viral assessments as a situation of getting into a worksite, as long as you possibly can present your testing practices are job-related and per enterprise necessity. The July 12 replace “makes clear that going forward employers will need to assess whether current pandemic circumstances and individual workplace circumstances justify viral screening testing of employees to prevent workplace transmission of COVID-19,” the EEOC stated. What do that you must know in regards to the newest tips? Here are seven key takeaways.
Two federal companies introduced plans to affix forces and scrutinize enterprise preparations involving unbiased contractors, amongst others, to find out whether or not there are antitrust issues – a troubling signal for gig economic system companies or any with a contractor workforce. In a July 19 press launch, the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) and the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) introduced a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) to reinforce their info sharing and cross-agency consultations, coaching, outreach, and schooling. This sounds much like the MOU that the NLRB entered into with the Department of Labor’s Wage and Hour Division earlier this 12 months. The NLRB’s July 19 press launch exhibits the company is dedicated, as evidenced by these MOUs, to work intently with different federal companies to advertise honest competitors and advance employees’ rights. Businesses within the gig economic system and elsewhere that fail to correctly classify workers or impose non-compete and disclosure provisions might discover themselves topic to scrutiny like by no means earlier than – and with highly effective federal legal guidelines on the disposal of regulators. With the MOU between the FTC and NLRB in impact, here’s what companies must know.
Answering trade requires a Twenty first-century resolution to a Twenty first-century drawback, a bipartisan group of federal lawmakers just lately launched a invoice in Congress that might create a hybrid job classification for gig economic system employees that might permit companies to keep away from misclassification claims and provides gig employees the pliability they crave. However, some employee advocates and labor unions are already expressing their opposition to the “Worker Flexibility and Choice Act,” launched on July 20, claiming that it’s an anti-worker legislation that might short-change gig employees from receiving minimal wage and time beyond regulation pay. What do that you must find out about this invoice – and what are its probabilities of ever changing into legislation?
Through the autumn of 2022, OSHA space places of work in Colorado, Montana, and South Dakota will undertake the Weekend Work initiative to open office security and well being inspections on Saturdays and Sundays. The initiative, introduced on July 11, will determine and deal with construction-related fall-hazards on weekends – a time when many employers sometimes don’t monitor their job websites properly, stated OSHA Regional Administrator Jennifer Rous (Denver). OSHA intends its strategy to determine hazardous worksites, be sure that employees are protected from accidents or worse, and assist guarantee employers present a secure and healthful office. What ought to employers in these areas do to organize?
OSHA can also be responding to what it notes as a rising development in trench-related fatalities. Citing its National Emphasis Program (NEP) for excavations, OSHA introduced on July 14 that compliance officers will carry out greater than 1,000 trench inspections nationwide, which implies they could cease by and examine any excavation website throughout their every day duties – even on the weekends. Moreover, OSHA stated it should place further emphasis on how company officers consider penalties for trenching and excavation associated incidents, together with legal referrals for federal or state prosecution. With employers already addressing OSHA’s NEP for heat-related accidents and diseases, what can employers do to organize for OSHA’s new focus?
(*14*) simply joined 17 different states that ban discrimination based mostly on coiffure by passing the CROWN Act, which Governor Baker signed into legislation on July 26. The CROWN Act stands for “Creating a Respectful and Open World for Natural Hair” and prohibits discrimination in faculties and workplaces based mostly on pure hairstyles which can be traditionally related to race. What do Bay State employers must find out about this new legislation?
The (*14*) Supreme Judicial Court (SJC) held on July 27 that native Grubhub supply drivers are usually not exempt from the Federal Arbitration Act (FAA), and people employees might be compelled to individually arbitrate their claims towards the supply app. The SJC’s resolution in Archer v. Grubhub, Inc. reverses an egregiously fallacious trial court docket resolution and joins a refrain of different courts which have determined this difficulty in favor of arbitration. What do that you must know in regards to the resolution?
In a choice that ought to put the nation’s non-public and unbiased faculty neighborhood on discover, a federal decide in Baltimore just lately dominated {that a} faculty’s nonprofit standing in and of itself constituted the receipt of federal monetary help – which implies that it’s topic to Title IX necessities, amongst different issues. For now, the July 21 resolution solely impacts faculties in Maryland, and is nearly sure to be appealed (and will even be blocked from going into impact through the enchantment course of). But this may very well be the start of a development (see under) that would catch on elsewhere, which means that each one non-public tax-exempt faculties ought to overview this ruling and be on guard to adapt your insurance policies and practices if vital.
Just days after the Baltimore court docket’s ruling {that a} faculty’s nonprofit standing robotically led it to be topic to Title IX, a California federal court docket joined the fray and echoed the identical precept. A July 25 ruling out of the Central District of California concluded {that a} faculty needs to be thought of to have obtained federal monetary help simply by being labeled as a nonprofit entity. This is a troubling growth and one that ought to trigger all nonprofit non-public and unbiased faculties to take discover.
Employers the transportation trade earned a uncommon win when an appeals court docket held {that a} federal legislation protecting railroad workers preempts sick go away provisions beneath California legislation. In quick, this implies you would not have to adjust to California’s sick go away legal guidelines for railroad employees and wish solely observe the federal Railroad Unemployment Insurance Act (RUIA). The ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeal’s July 26 ruling depends closely on the plain language of the RUIA and patently rejects the California Labor Commissioner’s makes an attempt to attract distinctions between the advantages offered beneath RUIA and California’s sick go away legal guidelines. The ruling simplifies the go away necessities for railroad employers and paves the best way for extra favorable rulings in conditions the place Congress has made clear that federal guidelines and laws supersede state legislation. What do that you must know in regards to the ruling and its broader implications?
Michigan employers must pay a minimal wage of at the least $12 an hour and supply expanded sick go away rights to all workers beginning February 19, 2023, because the Michigan Court of Claims stated it could delay enforcement of a latest ruling that’s presently being appealed. On July 19, the court docket held that the Michigan Legislature improperly usurped a voter initiative that was slated for the 2018 poll – which led the court docket to reinstate the 2018 voter-initiated variations of the state’s minimal wage legislation and paid sick go away legislation. What actions led to this resolution and what does it imply for employers?
A Houston-based vendor that gives detailer, automobile wash, and valet companies to space dealerships just lately agreed to pay $166K to resolve an worker misclassification grievance filed with the United States Department of Labor – however fortunately space dealerships had been by no means caught up within the authorized net that ensnared the detailer. Instead, for the dealerships, this remained a “them” drawback and never an “us” drawback. According to the grievance, Majestic Dealership Services Inc. handled the employees offering these companies to its dealership clients as unbiased contractors when they need to have been labeled as workers. The USDOL decided that these employees had been really Majestic’s workers and that the corporate had not paid them in compliance with relevant legislation. This perception summarizes the scenario that unfolded and gives 4 strategies your dealership can take to make sure this stays a “them” drawback and never a “you” drawback.