The Policy Week in Review, prepared by Littler’s Workplace Policy Institute (WPI), sets forth WPI’s updates on federal, state, and local matters, as well as Littler’s published in-depth analyses of the prior week....more
3/10/2025
/ Civil Rights Act ,
Collective Bargaining Agreements (CBA) ,
Department of Labor (DOL) ,
Employment Litigation ,
Employment Policies ,
Executive Orders ,
Immigration Procedures ,
Immigration Reform ,
Labor Reform ,
NLRA ,
NLRB ,
OCR ,
Title VI ,
Unions
A federal district court has held that Gwynne Wilcox, a member of the National Labor Relations Board, was “illegally” fired from her job. The court ordered the Board’s current chair to restore her access to the Board and let...more
3/10/2025
/ Corporate Counsel ,
Department of Labor (DOL) ,
Employment Litigation ,
Executive Orders ,
Hiring & Firing ,
NLRA ,
NLRB ,
Presidential Appointments ,
Separation of Powers ,
Termination ,
Trump Administration
The Policy Week in Review, prepared by Littler’s Workplace Policy Institute (WPI), sets forth WPI’s updates on federal, state, and local matters, as well as Littler’s published in-depth analyses of the prior week....more
3/3/2025
/ Department of Labor (DOL) ,
Diversity and Inclusion Standards (D&I) ,
Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) ,
Executive Orders ,
Immigration Reform ,
Labor Reform ,
Labor Relations ,
Minimum Wage ,
Paid Leave ,
Pay Transparency ,
Pregnant Workers Fairness Act ,
Small Business ,
State Labor Laws ,
Wage and Hour
On February 14, 2025, National Labor Relations Board Acting General Counsel William Cowen issued Memorandum 25-05, rescinding more than a dozen policy memos issued by his predecessor. Cowen cited an unsustainable backlog of...more
The Policy Week in Review, prepared by Littler’s Workplace Policy Institute (WPI), sets forth WPI’s updates on federal, state, and local matters, as well as Littler’s published in-depth analyses of the prior week....more
We are pleased to present the Policy Week in Review (PWR) prepared by Littler’s Workplace Policy Institute (WPI), the government relations and public policy arm of Littler. The PWR will set forth in one place WPI’s updates on...more
Among the first actions taken by the incoming administration was to rescind Executive Order (EO) 14055. Titled “Nondisplacement of Qualified Workers Under Service Contracts,” EO 14055 required certain federal contractors to...more
On November 15, 2024, the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas vacated and set aside the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL)’s final regulation increasing the salary threshold for the “white collar” overtime...more
The past year has brought sweeping changes to the world of work. Federal agencies finalized rules on minimum wage and overtime exemptions, union representation elections, pregnancy accommodations, OSHA inspections, and...more
After years of litigation, the California Supreme Court upheld Proposition 22, a voter-approved law allowing app-based drivers to work as independent contractors. The Court rejected a challenge by a group of labor unions,...more
7/26/2024
/ CA Supreme Court ,
California ,
Compensation & Benefits ,
Delivery Drivers ,
Independent Contractors ,
Mobile Apps ,
State Constitutions ,
State Labor Laws ,
State Legislatures ,
Unions ,
Workers’ Compensation
At the end of its 2024 term, the U.S. Supreme Court handed down four decisions limiting the power of federal agencies. While none of those decisions involved a labor and employment agency, all of them could transform labor...more
7/2/2024
/ Administrative Law Judge (ALJ) ,
Administrative Procedure Act ,
Article II ,
Article III ,
Chevron Deference ,
Chevron v NRDC ,
Constitutional Challenges ,
Corner Post Inc v Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System ,
Corporate Counsel ,
Judicial Authority ,
Loper Bright Enterprises v Raimondo ,
Regulatory Authority ,
SCOTUS ,
SEC v Jarkesy ,
Statutory Interpretation
On June 28, 2024, the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas issued a limited injunction of the U.S. Department of Labor’s new regulations increasing the minimum salary that certain executive, administrative,...more
On Friday, June 28, the U.S. Supreme Court overruled Chevron, USA Inc. v. Natural Resources Defense Council. Chevron often required courts to defer to federal agencies when those agencies were interpreting statutes they...more
7/1/2024
/ Administrative Procedure Act ,
Chevron Deference ,
Chevron v NRDC ,
Department of Labor (DOL) ,
Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) ,
Government Agencies ,
Judicial Authority ,
Regulatory Authority ,
SCOTUS ,
Statutory Interpretation ,
White-Collar Exemptions
The U.S. Department of Labor released a final rule on April 23, 2024, raising the salary threshold to qualify for certain overtime exemptions under federal law. Most importantly, it significantly raises the minimum salary...more
4/24/2024
/ Department of Labor (DOL) ,
Employer Liability Issues ,
Exempt-Employees ,
Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) ,
Federal Labor Laws ,
Final Rules ,
Highly Compensated Employees ,
Labor Reform ,
Minimum Salary ,
Non-Exempt Employees ,
Over-Time ,
Salaried Employees ,
Unpaid Overtime ,
Wage and Hour ,
White-Collar Exemptions
On March 8, 2024, the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas struck down regulations promulgated by the National Labor Relations Board (the “NLRB” or “Board”) defining joint employment (the “new Rule” or “2023...more
3/11/2024
/ Controlling Employer ,
Corporate Counsel ,
Employer Liability Issues ,
Federal Labor Laws ,
Hiring & Firing ,
Joint Employers ,
NLRA ,
NLRB ,
Unfair Labor Practices ,
Unions ,
Vacated
The U.S. Department of Labor published a final rule on January 9, 2024, defining “independent contractor” under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA). The final regulation rescinds a 2021 rule defining the same term. In place...more
1/9/2024
/ Department of Labor (DOL) ,
Economic Realities Test ,
Employee Definition ,
Employer Liability Issues ,
Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) ,
Federal Labor Laws ,
Final Rules ,
Freelance Workers ,
Gig Economy ,
Hiring & Firing ,
Independent Contractors ,
Labor Reform ,
Misclassification ,
Wage and Hour
Next week, the U.S. Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in two cases asking whether to overturn Chevron USA, Inc. v. Natural Resources Defense Council. Chevron is a landmark administrative law decision. It requires courts...more
The National Labor Relations Board’s general counsel recently published a memo, along with other resources, to clarify parts of the Board’s recent decision dealing with union organizing demands for bargaining orders.1 The...more
11/14/2023
/ Collective Bargaining ,
Employer Liability Issues ,
Federal Labor Laws ,
Labor Law Violations ,
Labor Relations ,
NLRA ,
NLRB ,
NLRB General Counsel ,
Unfair Labor Practices ,
Union Organizers ,
Unions
Federal appropriations are set to expire at midnight (ET) on Saturday, September 30. Unless lawmakers agree to a spending plan before then, much of the federal government will shut down....more
10/2/2023
/ Administrative Agencies ,
Department of Justice (DOJ) ,
Department of Labor (DOL) ,
Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) ,
Federal Budget ,
Federal Funding ,
Federal Trade Commission (FTC) ,
Government Agencies ,
Government Shutdown ,
NLRB ,
Regulatory Agencies
The wave of COVID-19 litigation is not coming; it has arrived. Even before most states open back up for business, plaintiff’s lawyers are suing employers for a variety of alleged violations related to the virus, including...more
Ahead of a second round of lending, the Small Business Administration (SBA) announced that businesses applying for loans under the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) must consider other sources of liquidity before certifying...more
The Department of Labor has clarified that gig workers qualify as “unemployed” under the Pandemic Unemployment Assistance (PUA) Program when they lose a significant amount of business because of COVID-19. ...more
Senate lawmakers agreed on April 21, 2020, to inject cash into the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP), a mechanism for offering forgivable loans to small businesses. Lawmakers also agreed to allocate more money for disaster...more
The CARES Act included a variety of new provisions to help employers and workers affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. Among those provisions were two aimed at student-loan repayment. ...more
On March 31, 2020, the IRS published new guidance clarifying how employers can claim tax credits for giving employees paid leave and maintaining their payrolls during the COVID-19 crisis. The agency explained that employers...more