A bipartisan group of 11 US Senators are advocating that the Trump administration increase, yet again – this time, doubling – the number of H-2B visas available for the current fiscal year. Maine’s two Senators, Republican Susan Collins and Independent Angus King, wrote a letter to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) urging DHS Secretary…
Read More »Earlier this week, the US Department of Labor (DOL) announced that it was altering the procedure by which H-2B Visa applications will be processed. The change results from the system crash that DOL experienced early in January when the flood of H-2B visa applications overwhelmed and crashed their system. Going forward, all applications filed on…
Read More »It’s official! The US Department of Labor last week officially amended its Field Operations Handbook relating when and for what work employers could pay workers a subminimum wage (tipped wage). The 80/20 rule, as it became known when it was implemented in 2009, provided that an employee could not be paid the lower tipped wage…
Read More »That’s the Department of Labor, of course, and joint employer wasn’t their only headline these past few weeks. The department finally sent along to the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA) a proposed regulation to “clarify, update and define” the basic and regular rate for calculating overtime pay. It is believed the regulation will…
Read More »On another front in the ongoing joint employer battle, the clarification promised by the Department of Labor in the form of a new rulemaking defining joint employer under the provisions of the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) has yet to be completed. The DOL had proposed that such a rule would be written and circulated…
Read More »The undoing of the Obama legacy continued last week when the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) rescinded the so-called 80/20 rule. The 80/20 rule, technically created when the department rescinded the prior rule back in 2009, established a threshold of 20% for determining whether a tipped employee could be paid the lower tipped wage for…
Read More »The Department of Labor on Tuesday announced it was extending the Payroll Audit Independent Determination Program (PAID) for an additional six months. PAID is a voluntary compliance initiative that helps workers collect back wages due them in an expedited manner without having to wait for lengthy investigations to conclude or initiate court cases. Through PAID,…
Read More »The gridlock on joint employer notwithstanding, the Department of Labor (DOL) this week extended for three years the validity of current notices and medical certification forms for use in complying with the federal Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) The forms were set to expire last Friday, August 31, but have now been extended until…
Read More »Last week, the Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs (OFCCP) within the Department of Labor issued a new directive governing the process by which the federal government analyzes pay compliance by federal contractors. The new directive, which rescinds the more bureaucratically-involved process implemented by the Obama administration back in 2013, requires OFCCP pay analysis to…
Read More »The Trump Department of Labor, at long last, officially rescinded on Tuesday of this week, the persuader rule, which triggered certain reporting requirements on employers in the face of union organizing efforts. Under the Obama-era rule, employers were required to disclose information and advice that outside consultants and attorneys were giving relative to means by…
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