The US Department of Labor (DOL) and the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) earlier this month issued a Joint Rule extending certain time frames for group health plans and other welfare and pension plans. In accordance with this latest Rule, plans must disregard the period from March 1, 2020 until 60 days after the announced end…
Read More »The Department of Labor reported yesterday that another 3.8 million new unemployment claims were filed last week, pushing the total for the last six weeks over the 30 million mark. In the wake of the latest report out of DOL, the Congressional Budget Office has projected that the unemployment rate could reach as high as…
Read More »The news from the Department of Labor (DOL), was no better yesterday than it was the past two weeks as another 6.6 million Americans filed first time claims for unemployment insurance in the face of the ongoing coronavirus crisis. Last week’s total of 6,648,000 claims was adjusted upwards during the week by an increase of…
Read More »The Families First Coronavirus Response Act (FFCRA) may only be one week old, but the Department of Labor has already issued a further guidance on the law that effectively changes some of the provisions of the statute. For openers, the latest DOL Guidance states that the law now takes effect on April 1st and that…
Read More »It’s hard to fathom that the joint employer question/issue, first created under the Obama administration with the NLRB Browning-Ferris decision back in 2015, is still unresolved all these years later. As we advised last week, the NLRB and the Department of Labor have both issued a “final rule” re-establishing the historical definition of joint employer.…
Read More »Earlier this week, the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) issued its final rule for determining joint-employer status under the National Labor Relations Act. The final rule reinstates the “direct and immediate control” standard, whereby a company must have substantial direct control over the essential terms and conditions of employment of another employer’s workers in order…
Read More »Following up on the call for it in his State of the Union address earlier this month, President Trump again pushed for paid family leave for all Americans with submission of his FY21 budget proposal to Congress. Trump has called for paid family leave in each of the past three years and has had senior…
Read More »Notwithstanding the above and possible re-opening of the issue, the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) has released the final version of the long-awaited joint employer rule. The final rule now employs a four-part test to determine joint employer status that includes whether a franchise: 1) maintains power to hire and fire; 2) supervise schedules and…
Read More »Two federal agencies this week again extended the public comment period on pending regulations. The comment period on the proposed DOL amended tip-pooling rule, which was scheduled to end this past Monday was extended by the Wage and Hour Division due to an outage on the federal website, www.Regulations.gov. After the outage was resolved, the…
Read More »Although it’s been in the works for years now and you’ve known about the final resolution for quite a few months, we want to remind our readers once again that the new overtime threshold also takes effect with the New Year. Beginning on January 1st, employees paid less than $35,308 on an annual basis must…
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