SCOTUS Nominee Hearing. The Senate Judiciary Committee has set September 4, 2018, for the start of Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh’s confirmation hearings. This is less than one month before the Court’s next term kicks...more
Our Washington Capitals fever is breaking here in D.C. but not before local area legislators introduced a resolution in the House of Representatives congratulating the team on their recent Stanley Cup victory. No surprise...more
Finally, some good news to report from our nation’s capital, as the Washington Capitals won their first ever Stanley Cup last night. Here is your Beltway Buzz....more
6/11/2018
/ Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) ,
Joint Employers ,
NLRB ,
NLRB General Counsel ,
OSHA ,
OSHRC ,
Railway Labor Act ,
Ruth Bader Ginsberg ,
Senate Confirmation Hearings ,
Sexual Harassment ,
Teamsters ,
Union Elections ,
Workplace Hazards ,
Workplace Violence
Rulemaking for Me, but Not for Thee. Late last week, senators Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY), and Bernie Sanders (I-VT) sent a letter to National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) Chairman John Ring asking him...more
The Buzz returns renewed and reenergized from last week’s highly successful Workplace Strategies conference in Phoenix, Arizona, where approximately 800 employer representatives gathered with Ogletree Deakins lawyers to...more
5/21/2018
/ Anti-Commandeering ,
Department of Justice (DOJ) ,
Department of Labor (DOL) ,
Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) ,
Highly-Skilled Workers Visa ,
Joint Employers ,
Memorandum of Understanding ,
NLRB ,
OFCCP ,
Proposed Legislation ,
SCOTUS ,
Tenth Amendment ,
Unpaid Overtime ,
USCIS ,
Wage and Hour
Ryan Retires. House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-WI) announced on April 11 that he won’t seek reelection in November. While Ryan is much more of a budget wonk than a labor guru, the Buzz will be monitoring the impacts of this...more
It’s spring recess in D.C., and the Senate and House will be off for two weeks. While the recess means lighter traffic, it doesn’t mean that the labor and employment policy machine grinds to a halt....more
4/2/2018
/ Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) ,
Browning-Ferris Industries of California Inc. ,
Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) ,
Joint Employers ,
NLRB ,
OFCCP ,
OIG ,
Persuader Rules ,
Proposed Legislation ,
Unions ,
Wage and Hour
Omnibus Speeds Through. More than six months into the current fiscal year, earlier today President Trump signed a massive omnibus spending bill that will fund the federal government through September 30. This means that a...more
3/26/2018
/ Appropriations Bill ,
DACA ,
Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) ,
Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) ,
Federal Budget ,
H-1B ,
Joint Employers ,
NLRB ,
OSHRC ,
Trump Administration ,
USCIS
If, like the Buzz, your bracket is already busted, please take a break from the games and spend a few minutes reading about what happened in labor and employment policy in D.C. this week.
Fiduciary Rule Vacated. On March...more
DACA Deadline Day. To the surprise of almost no one, March 5 has come and gone, and Congress did not reach a deal on the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) issue. This Congress has enough trouble agreeing on...more
NLRB Returns to Amorphous Joint-Employer Standard. Talk about policy oscillation: the National Labor Relations Board’s (NLRB) joint-employer recusal debacle continued this week, perhaps coming to an abrupt end (for now). ...more
In honor of the Olympics winding down, we wrote this week’s edition of the Buzz while performing a monster backside triple cork 1440. Read on to see if we stomp the landing....more
Between September 26, 2017, when for the first time in nearly a decade Republicans controlled the majority at the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), and December 16, 2017, when Chairman Philip Miscimarra’s term expired...more
2/6/2018
/ Ambush Election Rules ,
Boeing ,
Collective Bargaining ,
Employee Handbooks ,
Employee Rights ,
Employer Liability Issues ,
Employment Policies ,
Hiring & Firing ,
Joint Employers ,
NLRA ,
NLRB ,
NLRB General Counsel ,
Opinion Letter ,
State Labor Laws ,
Tip-Pooling ,
Unions ,
Unpaid Interns ,
Wage and Hour
“Let me tell you how it will be; There’s one for you, nineteen for me.” The taxman will look a little different beginning in 2018, as the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act was passed by Congress on December 20—by far the most significant...more
12/26/2017
/ AARP ,
ADEA ,
Ambush Election Rules ,
Collective Bargaining ,
Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) ,
Joint Employers ,
NLRB ,
OSHA ,
Senate Confirmation Hearings ,
Specialty Healthcare ,
Tax Reform
Washington, D.C., in December is known for its holiday parties, where lobbyists and Hill denizens gather to stab food with toothpicks and knock back cheap—and sometimes not-so-cheap—drinks. Despite all this partying, people...more
12/18/2017
/ Ambush Election Rules ,
Arbitration Agreements ,
Employee Handbooks ,
Holidays ,
Joint Employers ,
Lilly Ledbetter ,
NLRB ,
OFCCP ,
OSHA ,
Regulatory Agenda ,
Sexual Harassment ,
Tip-Pooling ,
USCIS
Now You See It, Now You Don’t—Revised House and Senate Tax Reform Proposals Differ in Treatment of Executive Compensation. As we reported in last week’s Beltway Buzz, the House introduced its tax reform proposal last...more
11/13/2017
/ 401k ,
Blacklist ,
Corporate Taxes ,
Deferred Compensation ,
Department of Homeland Security (DHS) ,
Department of Labor (DOL) ,
Executive Compensation ,
Internal Revenue Code (IRC) ,
Joint Employers ,
NLRB ,
OSHA ,
Paid Leave ,
Proposed Legislation ,
Tax Reform ,
Temporary Protected Status
Tax Reform Gets Under Way; Special Interest Groups Already Bustling.As soon as the Republican-controlled Congress cast aside (however momentarily) its attempts to repeal the Affordable Care Act (ACA) to focus on tax reform,...more
10/9/2017
/ Class Action ,
Class Action Arbitration Waivers ,
DACA ,
Epic Systems Corp v Lewis ,
Ernst & Young v Morris ,
H-1B ,
Joint Employers ,
Murphy Oil v NLRB ,
SCOTUS ,
Tax Reform ,
Visas
He Said, They Said. Over a Wednesday night dinner consisting of the unusual combination of Chinese food and chocolate pie, President Trump and Democratic congressional leaders Charles Schumer (D-NY) and Nancy Pelosi (D-CA)...more
9/18/2017
/ Administrative Procedure Act ,
Affordable Care Act ,
Congressional Committees ,
DACA ,
E-Verify ,
EEO-1 ,
Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) ,
Immigration Reform ,
Joint Employers ,
Legislative Agendas ,
Proposed Legislation ,
Trump Administration ,
University of California
2016 Overtime Rules Invalidated. U.S. District Court invalidates 2016 changes to overtime rules. Steven F. Pockrass has the details here....more
9/1/2017
/ Affordable Care Act ,
Beryllium Exposure ,
Department of Labor (DOL) ,
EEO-1 ,
Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) ,
Federal Contractors ,
Fiduciary Rule ,
Joint Employers ,
OMB ,
Opinion Letter ,
OSHA ,
Pay Equity Laws ,
Persuader Rules ,
Reporting Requirements ,
Unions ,
Volks Rule ,
Wage and Hour
Congress—Fall Preview. Hopefully, our representatives have been getting plenty of rest in August, because when they return to D.C. on September 5, they will begin a work period that is expected to be extremely busy. First, as...more
8/28/2017
/ Affordable Care Act ,
Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) ,
Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) ,
Joint Employers ,
Legislative Agendas ,
Lobbying ,
NLRB ,
Qualified Retirement Plans ,
Secretary of Labor ,
Tax Deductions ,
Wellness Programs
THE TIME IS RIGHT FOR . . . OSHA’S YEARLY SUMMER HEAT CAMPAIGN -
On June 26, 2017, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) announced the return of its heat illness prevention campaign: Water. Rest. Shade....more
8/4/2017
/ Administrative Interpretation ,
Ban the Box ,
Criminal Background Checks ,
Defend Trade Secrets Act (DTSA) ,
Department of Labor (DOL) ,
Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) ,
H-1B ,
Hiring & Firing ,
Independent Contractors ,
Joint Employers ,
Minimum Salary ,
Misappropriation ,
New Legislation ,
Opinion Letter ,
OSHA ,
Over-Time ,
Paid Time Off (PTO) ,
Persuader Rules ,
Sick Leave ,
Trade Secrets ,
Wage and Hour ,
Wage Theft ,
White-Collar Exemptions ,
Workplace Injury ,
Workplace Safety