Employment

On June 29th, the House passed H. 4434: An Act relative to the judicial enforcement of noncompetition agreements, which includes a number of provisions that have long been discussed as the necessary components of non-compete reform.

My colleague Alta Ray, was quoted in a Business Insurance article entitled, Injury Records Rule May Lead to More Citations in which she provides steps for employers to avoid retaliation against employees who report workplace injuries.

I appreciate the guidance you have provided regarding the documents the company needs to have in place when sending an employee on an assignment abroad

My colleagues Alden Bianchi and Alta Ray wrote a Bloomberg BNA Tax Management Compensation Planning Journal article entitled, The "The Emerging Contours of The Rules Concerning Wellness Programs Under (Conflicting) Federal Tax, Benefits and Employment Laws," in which they outline the development of workplace wellness programs and the regulation of these programs.

The trend toward local regulation of employment laws continues in California with three new local wage and hour enactments. On June 7, 2016, San Diego voters passed a ballot initiative containing two provisions for hourly workers.

On June 10, the Departments of Treasury, Labor, and Health and Human Services (The “Departments”) issued a set of proposed regulations dealing with expatriate health plans, excepted benefits, lifetime and annual limits, and short-term, limited-duration insurance.

This post continues our examination of the Department of Labor’s suite of final fiduciary and conflict of interest regulations. Our prior posts discussed the newly expanded definition of “investment advice fiduciary” and the “best interest contract” (or BIC) exemption.

As the ACA audit era approaches, many employers are wondering: what will happen?  What sorts of documentation will the IRS request?

Please join us on June 21st at 2:00 pm ET as we cover the new white-collar overtime rule.  This one-hour webinar will offer employers more than just a summary of the rule.

Last month, consistent with their obligation under the Dodd-Frank Act, several federal agencies released for comment a joint proposed rule that would prohibit any incentive compensation that encourages inappropriate risk taking by a covered financial institution

The Seventh Circuit recently became the first federal appellate court to say that employers can’t prevent class/collective actions through waivers in mandatory arbitration agreements, holding that such waivers interfere with employees’ rights to engage in concerted activity in violation of the National Labor Relations Act.

In an important victory for employers, the Supreme Court in Spokeo, Inc. v. Robins held that a plaintiff does not have Article III standing to sue in federal court under the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) and other federal statutes absent a sufficient allegation of the existence of a concrete injury.

The employer community was sent into a frenzy with the Department of Labor’s release on May 18, 2016 of its final white-collar overtime regulations.  Just two days before however, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission also released its own final regulations regarding employer wellness programs.

A couple of weeks ago, you wrote me about an employee who will be engaging in a six-month temporary assignment around Europe to scope market opportunities. The employee was Abbie Absent-Minded.

While many employers shifted some of their focus to the new overtime rules in the past couple of weeks, cybersecurity remains top of mind for most.  The reason?  Because the number one threat to a company's information (personal or confidential) is still its own employees.

One of the few “wins” for employers under the DOL’s new overtime rule was that employers are now allowed to apply “nondiscretionary incentive payments” to meet up to 10 percent of the new salary threshold.  This change could prove very important for employers who pay employees on a commission basis or who use other incentive-based compensation.

As we reported earlier, the DOL has now released its final overtime rule. Two of the biggest takeaways are that the new rule (1) greatly increases the minimum salary threshold of the so-called “white collar” exemptions (at least $913 per week, equaling $47,476 annually); and (2) made no changes to the exemptions’ separate job duties’ tests.

Last month the U.S. Department of Labor published a suite of final regulations governing the fiduciary status of, and prescribing conflict of interest rules that apply to, persons who provide investment advice to ERISA-covered retirement plans and Individual Retirement Accounts (IRAs).

Many employers are familiar with the fact that the EEOC regularly conducts on-site workplace investigations after receiving charges of discrimination or harassment.

My colleague Patricia Moran, wrote a Law360 article entitled In The ACA Age, Employee Handbooks Can Help — Or Hurt as a follow up to her latest post, Have You Reviewed your Employee Handbook for Affordable Care Act Compliance? In the article, Moran urges employers to review their health and welfare benefit documentation for ACA compliance.