A recent barrage of federal injunctions has caused substantial confusion for employers who were preparing to comply with federal vaccine mandates, including mandates involving OSHA, CMS and federal contractors. As a result, many covered employers are re-evaluating their plans to take the following points into consideration:
As we all know by now, on November 5, 2021, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) issued an Emergency Temporary Standard (ETS) to protect workers in businesses with more than 100 employees from the Coronavirus, and on November 6, 2021, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals stayed enforcement of the ETS. B.S.T. Holdings, LLC,
Return to work procedures and vaccine mandates have consumed much of Human Resources’ attention over the past year. However, there are other areas of the law that employers should continue to monitor. For example, California recently passed Senate Bill 331 (“SB 331”) which limits an employer’s ability to use non-disparagement, non-disclosure, and confidentiality agreements. Specifically,
In 2020, the Ohio BWC decided to return a total of nearly $8 billion in dividends to Ohio employers over the course of the year. Although the amount of the dividends reflected an effort to assist employers reeling from the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, dividend returns are not exclusively a COVID-19 relief effort; any
On September 29, 2021, the General Counsel of the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), Jennifer Abruzzo, issued a Guidance Memorandum memorializing her position that student-athletes at private universities should be considered “employees” under the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA).
The NLRB has never directly answered the question of whether student-athletes are employees under the NLRA.
On September 22, 2021, the U.S. Department of Labor (“DOL”) finalized a regulation which allows for penalties up to $1,100 per violation, plus back wages owed, whenever the DOL finds tipped workers have been cheated of tips. Previously, a Trump Administration rule, which was never finalized, only allowed fines to be imposed for “repeated and
On Thursday September 9, 2021, President Biden outlined a multi-pronged plan to reduce the number of unvaccinated Americans in the United States, among other COVID-related initiatives. In addition to issuing an Executive Order implementing vaccination requirements for federal workers and requiring vaccinations for healthcare workers, President Biden also directed The Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety
NLRB General Counsel Jennifer A. Abruzzo followed up her 10(j)-warning shot with another admonition, this time encouraging regions to request the “full panoply of remedies available to ensure that victims of unlawful conduct are made whole for losses suffered as a result of unfair labor practices.”
General Counsel Abruzzo began her September 8, 2021, Memorandum
In July, the Department of Labor (“DOL”) announced a Notice of Proposed Rule Making to develop enforcement and implementation procedures for President Biden’s Executive Order 14026. Executive Order 14026, which was signed on April 27, 2021, requires federal contractors to pay their employees at least $15.00 per hour beginning January 30, 2022. Beginning January
Almost immediately after the FDA issued full approval of the Pfizer/BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine earlier this week, employers began rolling out mandatory vaccination policies. These policies are raising a variety of legal and practical questions for employers, including whether employers are required to compensate employees for time spent getting the vaccine.
Although the answer to this