As the federal agency charged with being the fair and impartial arbiter of the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) within the United States, the NLRB is expanding enforcement of employee rights as articulated by the NLRA beyond the national boundaries. Toward that end, NLRB General Counsel Jennifer Abruzzo this week announced that her office had…
Read More »The New York City Council overwhelmingly voted last week to delay the effective date of its new pay transparency law by five months. Originally scheduled to become effective one week from Sunday, on May 15, the law will not now take effect until November 1. The ordinance requires employers with 4 or more employees to…
Read More »While the Relief for Restaurants and Other Hard Hit Small Businesses Act of 2022 (H.R. 3807) languishes amid the partisan rancor in Washington DC, the Illinois legislature stepped in to fill the void, at least to an extent. The FY23 Illinois state budget, signed by Governor JB Pritzker back in mid-April, included the appropriation of…
Read More »And as if to add an exclamation point to its unmistakable pro-union stance, the NLRB filed suit against Starbucks alleging the company was guilty of unfair labor practices in the firing of 3 former employees. The NLRB Phoenix regional office filed the action in US District Court alleging that Starbucks illegally retaliated against three of…
Read More »With Governor Tate Reeves adding his signature earlier last week, the state of Mississippi became the 50th and final state to add a pay equity law to its books. The new Mississippi law (HB. 770), which takes effect on July 1, 2022, prohibits employers from paying “an employee a wage at a rate less than…
Read More »A federal court in the state of Washington has dismissed a class action lawsuit challenging a long-term care benefit program known as Washington Cares Fund. The program called for an employee payroll tax of .58% of total pay per payroll beginning this past January 1, but it also gave employees the option to opt-out of…
Read More »The Illinois legislature has unanimously passed an amendment to the Illinois Human Rights Act (IHRA) clarifying the meaning of “race” discrimination under the law. The amendment, known as the “CROWN Act,” or the “Create a Respectful and Open Workplace for Natural Hair Act”, will update the definition of “race” under the IHRA so that “race”…
Read More »Earlier this week, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) acknowledged and reaffirmed that taxpayers in certain situations are entitled to penalty relief when they can show reasonable cause and not willful neglect for the failure to pay. The issue, which largely stemmed from the Employee Retention Tax Credit (ERTC) and the ongoing backlog of tax returns,…
Read More »In her unceasing quest to cultivate further unionization across the business spectrum, National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) General Counsel Jennifer Abruzzo announced her latest efforts last week on Twitter. Abruzzo, who formerly worked for SEIU, advised the Board in a brief filed in a pending case (Cemex Construction Materials v International Brotherhood of Teamsters) that…
Read More »And speaking of reverting back to earlier requirements, remember the EEO-1 reports that President Trump was phasing out? Well, the resurrected EEO-1 Component 1 reports for 2021 are due by May 17, 2022. The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) announced a week ago that the EEO-1 Data Collection platform is now open. All private sector…
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