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COVID-19 and the ADA

Vincent Jackson
Vincent Jackson
03/26/2020
Agency Activity, COVID-19, Disability & Leave
The EEOC issued on March 19, 2020 an FAQ entitled What You Should Know About the ADA, the Rehabilitation Act, and COVID-19 that contains important guidance for employers adjusting to the new reality presented by the COVID-19 pandemic. While the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) and the Rehabilitation Act continue to apply, they do not prevent compliance with guidelines issued by the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) or state and local public...
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EEOC Enforcement Data Shows Decrease In Overall Complaints For FY19

Kollman & Saucier
Kollman & Saucier
01/27/2020
Agency Activity, Employment Discrimination
On Friday, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission released its charge-filing statistics for fiscal year 2019, which began October 1, 2018 and ended September 30, 2019. Overall, the Commission received 72,675 charges of discrimination in FY19, down from 76,418 in 2018.  Not surprisingly, retaliation charges continued to make up a majority of claims at 39,110 or 53.8%.  Compared to other employment discrimination claims, retaliation...
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DOL Issues New Guidance On Joint Employment

Vincent Jackson
Vincent Jackson
01/21/2020
Agency Activity, Joint Employer, Wage & Hour
On January 16, 2020, the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) issued a final rule that will significantly revise its longstanding interpretation of joint employer status under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA).  This update marks the first substantive change to the federal regulation concerning joint employer status (29 CFR Part 791) in over 60 years, and provides a new framework for assessing joint employer status when an employee performs work for...
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DOL Rolls Out New and Proposed Rules Regarding FLSA Pay Requirements

Kollman & Saucier
Kollman & Saucier
11/11/2019
Agency Activity, Wage & Hour
The U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) recently took two actions implicating and potentially implicating, respectively, how employees are paid under the federal Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA). A New Rule First, on September 27, the DOL issued a final rule on implementing the exemptions from minimum wage and overtime pay requirements for executive, administrative, professional, outside sales, and computer employees.  In general, the FLSA requires...
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Employers: Don’t Be Part of the Department of Labor’s Statistics

Frank Kollman
Frank Kollman
10/30/2019
Agency Activity, Wage & Hour
The Department of Labor is reporting that it collected $322 million in back wages for workers in fiscal year 2019, which is a record.  The amount collected in fiscal year 2018 was also a record at that time.  This should put to rest any concerns about DOL enforcement policies under a Republican administration. Most of the cases involved overtime compensation ($186 million), and about $40 million involved failure to pay minimum wage.  In any...
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Wells Fargo Learns That Hiring Matters Too

Frank Kollman
Frank Kollman
10/22/2019
Agency Activity, Hiring Process
The U.S. Department of Labor has entered into a conciliation agreement with Wells Fargo & Co. to settle allegations that it discriminated in hiring on the basis of sex and race.  The Office of Contract Compliance Programs (OFCCP) found that  Wells Fargo (a federal contractor) had discriminated against 2,066 female applicants for positions as online customer service representatives in Glen Allen, Virginia, and Salt Lake City, Utah, and 282...
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Tell Us About Bad Wage and Hour Investigators Says Head of Wage and Hour Division

Frank Kollman
Frank Kollman
10/21/2019
Agency Activity, Wage & Hour
The wage and hour laws are complicated, and rarely intuitive.  Technical violations of wage and hour laws are so common that no company can be absolutely positive that it is complying with all Department of Labor regulations, and the laws and regulations of states and local jurisdictions. In fact, these laws and regulations are so complicated that even the investigators hired to enforce them often interpret them incorrectly.  There are statutes,...
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NLRB Issues New Guidance on Social Media Policies

Kollman & Saucier
Kollman & Saucier
08/28/2019
Agency Activity, Labor Law, Social Media
The Office of the General Counsel to the NLRB recently released an Advice Memorandum shedding new light on the types of social media rules that are permissible in the wake of the Board’s December 2017 ruling in The Boeing Co, 365 NLRB No. 154 (12/17/17).  In that case, the Board set a new standard for evaluating the lawfulness of workplace rules under Section 7 of the NLRA. The Boeing standard weighs the importance of the employee’s exercise of...
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Department of Labor Opines That Gig Workers are Independent Contractors

Vincent Jackson
Vincent Jackson
05/03/2019
Agency Activity, Independent Contractors, Wage & Hour
On April 29, 2019, the Department of Labor’s (“DOL”) Wage and Hour Division issued an opinion letter (FLSA2019-6) stating that workers in the “gig” or “sharing” economy should be considered as independent contractors rather than employees.  This opinion letter, while limited to the specific facts of the anonymous company who requested it, has potentially wide-ranging consequences for the sharing economy as a whole. The DOL’s letter...
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Some Fun Facts About The EEOC's 2018 Charge Data

Kollman & Saucier
Kollman & Saucier
04/12/2019
Agency Activity, Employment Discrimination, Retaliation, Sexual Harassment
The EEOC released its 2018 charge statistics earlier this week.  Here are three key pieces of information to consider: Charge filings have decreased.  In 2018, the EEOC processed 76,418 charges, which represents more than a 9% decrease from 2017, a nearly 17% decrease from 2016, and a 23.5% decreased from the all-time high year of charge filings in 2010 (99,922 charges).   Because charge filings tend to flow with the relative strength of the...
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