Labor & Employment Law Update

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) announced that is it ending the List B identity document flexibilities it had provided employers since May 2020. Starting on May 1, 2022, employers may ONLY accept UNEXPIRED List B documents.

In the past few years, a law was passed in Illinois that added annual reporting requirements for publicly held companies with their headquarters in Illinois.

Although labor unions have historically not targeted  banks and credit unions for organizing, desperate times call for desperate measures as union membership continues to fall in the United States with only 6.1% of the private sector workforce belonging to a labor organization. While just over 1% of all financial services employees are unionized, there has been an uptick in unionization hitting the financial industry since 2020; with signs of more aggressive action on the part of labor organizations not slowing down. 

Recent Union Organizing of Financial Institutions

Recent ...

On March 14, 2022, Judge Marcia Crone of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas ordered that the Trump administration’s rulemaking regarding the Fair Labor Standards Act’s (FLSA) Independent Contractor Test (specifically Title 29, Part 795 of the Code of Federal Regulations) be reinstated effective March 8, 2021. The court ruled that the Department of Labor’s delay and subsequent withdrawal of the rule was a violation of the Administrative Procedure Act (APA).  It is unclear whether the Department of Labor will appeal the Texas court’s decision to the ...

Retaliation remains a top enforcement priority of the federal government. Last week the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) announced a new field assistance bulletin entitled “Protecting Workers from Retaliation” and pledged to “use every tool available” to “uphold the rights of workers to identify violations of the law without fear of termination or other threats to their reputation, safety or livelihood.” Making good on its pledge, this week the DOL ordered an Arizona manufacturer to pay nearly $600,000 and reinstate a former employee who claimed retaliation ...

Below are some of the latest state updates and posters –

NEW JERSEY

The State of New Jersey has issued a new Wage and Hour Law Abstract in connection with its amendment of the statutory minimum wage rate. Accordingly, employees are not to be paid less than the state minimum wage schedule provided.

Overtime is payable at a rate of 1.5 times the employee’s regular hourly rate for hours worked in excess of 40 hours per week. The following employees are exempt from overtime: (i) executive, administrative and professional; (ii) farm workers; and (iii) limousine drivers.

Employees ...

Below are some of the latest state updates and posters –

CALIFORNIA

The State of California has released various information on Covid-19 related paid sick leave for 2022:

• According to the Supplemental Paid Sick Leave Poster, which became effective on February 19, 2022, covered employees in the public or private sectors who work for employers with at least 26 employees are entitled to up to 80 hours of 2022 COVID-19 related paid sick leave from January 1, 2022 through September 30, 2022. This leave is to be issued immediately upon any form of request to employers, and 40 of ...

President Biden, the self-described “most pro-union president,” is faced with the grim reality that despite his administration’s systematic efforts to boost union membership, union membership has, instead, fallen back to historic lows. The Bureau of Labor Statistics released figures that the rate of union membership, or the percentage of wage and salary workers who were part of a union, dropped to 10.3% in 2021, matching the record low in 2019. Among private-sector workers, the numbers were even worse: union members made up just 6.1% of that workforce, compared to 33.9% of ...

On December 27, 2021, the NLRB entered a formal Notice and Invitation for briefing from the public to aid in its consideration of: (1) overturning the independent-contractor standard established in SuperShuttle DFW, Inc., 367 NLRB No. 75 (2019); and (2) returning to the standard from FedEx Home Delivery, 361 NLRB 610, 611 (2014) either in its entirety or with modifications. 

The notice and invitation come as part of the Board’s review of a finding that certain makeup artists, wig artists, and hairstylists are employees of The Atlanta Opera, Inc. and not independent ...