Employment

Mayor Bill de Blasio and the Commissioner and Chair of the New York City Commission on Human Rights Carmelyn P. Malalis announced on February 9, 2016 that the Commission would begin accepting requests for and issue U and T visa certifications. The Victims of Trafficking and Violence Protection Act in part created U and T visas.

Off-the-clock work occurs any time someone performs work while not on their regular shift no matter where the work is performed.  Generally, this work is compensable if the employer knows or should have known that the employee was performing the work.

The Fifth Circuit recently sided with an employer in an off-the-clock overtime case where the employee failed to comply with her employer’s overtime approval and reporting policies.  For employers, this decision highlights the importance of implementing overtime authorization and reporting policies to defeat these claims.

For the last half of 2015, we spent a good deal of time explaining the Affordable Care Act reporting requirements that applied to carriers and large employers. A compilation of these posts, which generally address the content of the ACA reporting requirements, is available here.

In Q&A format, recently issued Notice 2015-87 addresses a number of pressing issues that have arisen under the Affordable Care Act (ACA), including that law’s employer shared responsibility rules, information reporting requirements, and insurance market reforms, among others.

The Zika virus has been the topic of much discussion and anxiety for many weeks.  The United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has now issued travel warnings for more than two dozen countries in the Caribbean, Central America and South America and cases have been reported in at least 13 states and Washington, D.C.

"They’re beautiful.  They’re charming.  And they’re bringing drinks.  She moves toward you like a movie star, her smile melting the ice in your bourbon and water.  His ice blue eyes set the olive in your friend’s martini spinning.

On February 5, 2016, the Departments of the Treasury, Labor, and Health and Human Services (the Departments) issued guidance addressing the application of market reforms and other provisions of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) to student health coverage, and providing temporary transition relief from enforcement by the Departments for non-compliant employers.

Health and welfare have been around for a long time, and they are ubiquitous.  Employees have come to expect medical, dental, life, and other insurance as part of their benefits packages.

The EEOC unveiled its proposed revisions to the Employer Information Report (EEO-1) last month.  With the revisions, the EEOC hopes to gather additional data to help better discern pay discrimination.

We are back with our annual Super Bowl prediction post. As noted in prior years, people are increasingly making their predictions based on two indicators: unemployment rates and the whims of Utah zoo animals.

Last week, Browning-Ferris Industries, the California-based waste management company, appealed two decisions issued by the National Labor Relations Board related to the definition of joint employer.

Issued at the end of last year, Notice 2015-87 provided detailed guidance on a host of topics. The notice has been referred to colloquially in some quarters as the “pot luck” notice.

The U.S. Department of Labor Wage and Hour Division weighed in last week on the hot topic of joint employment, issuing an Administrative Interpretation entitled “Joint employment under the Fair Labor Standards Act and Migrant and Seasonal Agricultural Worker Protection Act.”

It is a familiar scenario: a company is on the verge of bankruptcy, bound by the terms of a collective bargaining agreement (CBA), and unable to negotiate a new agreement.

An unaccepted Rule 68 Offer of Judgment for complete relief does not moot a plaintiff’s individual and class action claims said the Supreme Court on Wednesday.

As wise employers focus strategic initiatives to enhance diversity and inclusion in the workplace, we periodically receive questions about limitations for proactive approaches in this area.

Non-disparagement provisions are commonplace in today’s settlement and separation agreements, with employers often seeking the broadest protection against disparagement.  A recent decision from a New York federal court, however, suggests that such provisions may have their limits in connection with wage and hour settlement agreements.

My colleague, Sue Foster, is out with a quick, but important post on our sister blog, Privacy and Security Matters, about a European Court of Human Rights decision that approved employer access to personal employee communications under limited circumstances.

My colleague Patricia Moran, was quoted in the Bloomberg BNA article entitled Cadillac Tax Isn’t Being Sent to the Junkyard Yet in which she advises employers on strategic use of the two-year delay of the Affordable Care Act’s Cadillac tax. The article examines the implications of the delay and the likelihood that the tax is repealed.