Last week, the Department of Labor (DOL) announced that it had ended the employer self-reporting wage and hour program that was implemented by the Trump administration. The Payroll Audit Independent Determination program (PAID), which was launched in 2018, allowed employers to self-report potential wage and hour violations under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) and…
Read More »The US Senate confirmation hearing on Secretary of Labor nominee Mayor Marty Walsh was held yesterday by the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor & Pensions. There did not appear to be any significant issues with Mayor Walsh’s nomination and in the wake of that hearing, one can anticipate that Mayor Walsh will be confirmed…
Read More »Back during the 2020 Presidential Campaign, then candidate Joe Biden made it clear where he would come down on labor issues, pledging to the AFL-CIO at a Labor Day event that he will be “the strongest labor president you ever had” when he is in the White House. Well, he’s only been there two days,…
Read More »President-elect Joseph Biden named two elected officials from New England to his Cabinet yesterday with the appointments of Rhode Island Governor Gina Raimondo as incoming Commerce Secretary and Boston Mayor Marty Walsh as Secretary of Labor. Both positions will require Senate confirmation. In her 6th year as governor of the Ocean State and the first…
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It would be hard to think of a tougher year for the restaurant industry than 2020, which saw the coronavirus pandemic turn the world upside down. But as we head into 2021, there is light and hope on the horizon. A slew of new vaccines is rolling out across the country, while the $900 billion…
Read More »Proceeding under the assumption that current presidential election results will not change significantly enough to alter the outcome announced to date, it may behoove us to take a closer look prospectively at a Biden Presidency. In that vein, we could expect one of the first actions in a Biden Presidency would be to rescind a…
Read More »The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) formally authorized entering into a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with other agencies to improve collaboration and enforcement of federal labor laws. The full complement of 5 EEOC Commissioners (3 republican & 2 democrat members) met publicly, albeit virtually, for the first time in quite a while to discuss and…
Read More »The 2020 Presidential campaign comes down to a precious few days now as the polls – early voting, mail-in and in-person – all will close on Tuesday. If you haven’t yet done so, please be sure to get out and vote on November 3. An integral part of exercising that critical civic responsibility is understanding…
Read More »According to a recent poll by the Gallup Group, public approval for labor unions and organized labor activities is on the upswing. Historically, support of organized labor has been dropping from its peak of 75 percent approval reached back in 1957 to a low of 48 percent recorded just over a decade ago in 2009.…
Read More »The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) this week proposed yet another change to the legal parameters governing union elections, continuing to refine that process. The major change published in the Federal Register this week would eliminate the requirement that employers provide available personal email addresses and telephone numbers of all eligible voters during a union…
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