With the COVID-19 vaccine finally becoming a reality, healthcare employers, who were first to receive the vaccine for distribution to their workforce, are addressing questions of how to implement vaccination programs. Other employers are thinking about these issues as well, in preparation for the time when vaccines are more widely available. Below, we have addressed many common, and some not so common, questions about vaccines in the workplace.
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New York Court Vacates Portion of DOL’s Joint Employer Rule
On September 8, 2020, U.S. District Court Judge Gregory Woods of the Southern District of New York, issued a Memorandum Opinion and Order vacating various portions of the Department of Labor’s (“DOL”) Final Rule regarding the definition of joint employment under the Fair Labor Standards Act (“FLSA”). Judge Woods found that the Final Rule violated the Administrative Procedures Act (“APA”) because it was (1) arbitrary and capricious, and (2) not in accordance with law.
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Federal Court Vastly Expands FFCRA Paid Leave Mandate – What This Actually Means for Covered Employers
In a decision potentially impacting all employers covered by the Families First Coronavirus Response Act (FFCRA), a federal court upended some of the employer-friendly limitations set forth in the U.S. Department of Labor’s (DOL) implementing regulations (i.e. the “Final Rule”): (1) the work-availability requirement, (2) the broad exemption for health care providers, (3) employer approval of intermittent leave, and (4) the documentation requirement. Below, we first summarize the Court’s decision and then discuss the practical effect of this decision on employers.
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NLRB Catches Up To The #MeToo and #BLM Movements
On July 21, 2020, the National Labor Relations Board (the “Board”) issued what it described as “a long overdue” decision eliminating unwarranted protection for employees who engage in obscene, racist, and sexually harassing behavior under the guise of protected concerted activity.
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DOL Proposes New Overtime Rule, Increasing Required Salary Level for Exempt Employees
In the latest development in the long saga involving the overtime rule, the Department of Labor has now issued its long-awaited proposed revision to the regulations governing which employees are exempt from the requirement to pay overtime for all hours worked over 40 in a workweek.
The Current Rule: The current overtime rule, which took
We Sued the DOL, and the DOL Blinked
Back in 2016, on behalf of the Worklaw®Network, a nationwide association of independent labor and employment law firms of which Shawe Rosenthal is a member, we filed suit against the U.S. Department of Labor to block the DOL’s new interpretation of the “persuader rule,” which is the advice exemption of the Labor Management Reporting and Disclosure Act (“LMRDA”). Several other suits were filed as well, a nationwide injunction was issued by a federal court in Texas, the DOL issued a proposed rule to rescind the new interpretation, and now, repeatedly citing the favorable decisions in our lawsuit and directly quoting the comments to the DOL’s proposed rule we submitted on behalf of Worklaw, the DOL has officially rescinded the rule.
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Don’t Access My Emails And Tell Me It’s Legal
Departing employees do a lot of dumb things with email. Sometimes they use an employer’s systems, which they know are regularly monitored, to ask their attorneys how to set up claims against their employers. Sometimes, after they email a slew of confidential or trade secret information to themselves on their way out the door, they click delete on the sent messages only to leave all of the evidence in the “deleted” folder. In today’s blog, we ask employers to leave it to departing employees to do dumb stuff with email.
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We Sued the Department of Labor, and Now It Has Backtracked on the Persuader Rule
As we previously blogged, Shawe Rosenthal, on behalf of the Worklaw®Network, a nationwide association of independent labor and employment law firms of which we are a member, filed suit last year against the U.S. Department of Labor to block the DOL’s new interpretation of the advice exemption of the Labor Management Reporting and Disclosure Act (“LMRDA”), or the “persuader rule.” And now, on Monday, June 12, 2017, the DOL announced a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (“NPRM”) that proposes to rescind that new persuader rule interpretation.
Continue Reading We Sued the Department of Labor, and Now It Has Backtracked on the Persuader Rule
Is Setting Pay Based on Prior Salary the Same as Setting Pay Based on Sex?
Can prior salary justify a pay differential, or does it necessarily perpetuate sex-based pay discrimination? This was the subject of a recent Equal Pay Act (EPA) case before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, in which the court bucked the recent trend of connecting prior salary with pay discrimination against females.
The EPA is a federal law that prohibits discrimination between employees on the basis of sex by paying employees of one sex less than employees of the opposite sex for equal work. It bears noting that the law applies to both sexes. Under the EPA, a Plaintiff must show that he or she is receiving different wages for “equal work.” If the Plaintiff makes that showing, the burden shifts to the employer to assert any of a number of affirmative defenses to explain the wage disparity, including:
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DOL’s Attempt to Interfere with Attorney-Client Relationships Blocked by Texas Court
DOL’s Attempt to Interfere with Attorney-Client Relationships Blocked by Texas Court
Back in March of this year, the Department of Labor (DOL) tried to interfere with employers’ confidential communications with their attorneys. Some law firms surrendered, ran, or hid, saying they would no longer have the kinds of conversations DOL wanted to interfere with. Shawe Rosenthal, along with other Worklaw Network firms, stood up and fought. We filed a lawsuit against the DOL to protect our clients’ interests and maintain the integrity of the attorney-client relationship. Two similar lawsuits were filed against the DOL, and in one of them, employers can consider themselves victorious following an Order from a United States District Court in Texas holding the DOL’s new rule unlawful and setting it aside.
Continue Reading DOL’s Attempt to Interfere with Attorney-Client Relationships Blocked by Texas Court