Employment

In a rare display of bipartisanship, Congress voted to eliminate the Affordable Care Act’s separate cap on deductibles that applies to individual and small group insurance products. (These limits never applied to large fully-insured groups or to self-funded plans.)

The New York City Earned Sick Time Act goes into effect today. In other news, the New York City Department of Consumer Affairs has released proposed rules to “establish requirements to implement the [paid sick leave] Act and meet its goals, and provide guidance to covered employers and protected employees.” The proposed rules are available here.

Distinguishing employees who are full-time from those who are not takes up a good deal of real estate in final regulations published in the Federal Register on February 12 implementing the Act’s employer shared responsibility rules (the “final regulations”).

The Supreme Court has agreed to hear oral argument on the issue of whether employers must compensate employees for time they spend going through mandatory security checks, which are aimed to curb employee theft.

Alden Bianchi comments on what employers should be doing (The short answer? Check your numbers!) in light of the recently released final ACA regulations in an article published by U-T San Diego. Also included is a checklist for businesses, plus tips for determining the number of full-time employees for employers with seasonal workers or those with irregular hours.

On Wednesday, the New York City Council voted 50-0 to extend the New York City Human Rights Law’s protections to interns. Last October, we reported on a Federal court decision dismissing an unpaid intern’s hostile work environment and discrimination claims because she wasn’t protected under the statute.

I have to admit, when I read the news that the Supreme Court had ruled earlier this week that severance payments are “wages” subject to payroll taxes, I thought I was on crazy pills: Didn’t we already know that? But, apparently, the IRS had received a ton of refund claims specifically related to FICA taxes paid on severance, to the tune of more than $1 billion.

Our attention on the NCAA college basketball tournament was temporarily diverted by the non-courtside drama that played out this week when the University of South Florida revoked its head coaching offer to Steve Masiello after it learned that he lied about his educational credentials. Coach Masiello had signed a deal to become head coach of USF’s basketball program.

Last week, we placed the union recognition effort of Northwestern University’s football players as the No. 1 seed in the Midwest Region in our blog entry of issues that may change the face of the Final Four. That issue has now certainly cemented its No. 1 status.

Have you taken the steps necessary to comply with NYC’s paid sick leave law yet? If not, what are you waiting for? The Act goes into effect on Tuesday, April 1, 2014.

Final regulations under Code § 4980H published in the Federal Register on February 12 include a new term—“limited non-assessment period”—which describes periods for which an applicable large employer (i.e., an employer with an average of 50 or more full-time and full-time equivalent employees on business days during the preceding calendar year) will not be subject to

The importance of drafting employment agreements carefully could not be more evident in the superior court case of Boesel v. Swaptree, Inc., where the court rejected a high-level executive’s ability to bring a claim under the Massachusetts Wage Act after his former employer delayed his bonus payments.

In a recent edition of its Employee Plans News publication, the IRS provided further guidance on what formal voluntary corrections it will accept from 457(b) plan sponsors that discover their plans are not in compliance with Internal Revenue Code requirements.

Last week, President Obama ordered U.S. Department of Labor Secretary Tom Perez to update the existing federal regulations on overtime, the effect of which could allow millions of workers to qualify for time and half pay for the first time.

This year’s NCAA Division I Basketball Tournament may be the last of its kind. This post explores some of the brewing legal issues that may force big changes to future “Final Fours,” and in turn, the legal rights and obligations of the NCAA and its member universities, and athletics personnel and student-athletes.

The last few weeks have produced a regulatory frenzy under various provisions of the Affordable Care Act affecting employers.

With the Olympics now behind us (were they ever in front of us?), this time of year usually marks the sports netherworld between the Super Bowl and the NCAA Men's Division I Basketball Tournament, which is better known as March Madness. This lull provides employers with an excellent opportunity to contemplate the issues that March Madness creates in their workplace.

Code § 6055 imposes on entities that offer minimum essential coverage (i.e., health insurance issuers, certain sponsors of self-insured plans, government agencies and other parties that provide health coverage) the obligation to report certain information about the coverage to the employee and to the IRS.

Don Schroeder, our oft-quoted labor law attorney, was recently featured in an article on CNN in which he discusses the Volkswagen plant in Chattanooga, TN and its rejection of representation by the United Auto Workers.

Dick’s Sporting Goods has sued Modell’s Sporting Goods and its prominent fourth-generation CEO, Mitchell Modell, claiming Modell brazenly visited a Dick’s retail location and impersonated a Dick’s executive to unlawfully gain a competitive advantage.