On August 3, 2020, the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York struck down portions of the DOL’s Final Rule regarding who qualifies for COVID-19 emergency paid sick leave under the Emergency Paid Sick Leave Act and the Emergency Family and Medical Leave Expansion Act, collectively referred to as the Families First Coronavirus Response Act.
Continue Reading Federal Court Strikes Down Portions of Department of Labor’s Final Rule on COVID-19 Leave, Expands Coverage

In recent years, publicly traded retailers in have experienced a significant uptick in interest from investors focused on Environmental, Social and Governance issues. On April 23, 2018, the Department of Labor released Field Assistance Bulletin 2018-01, which applies to certain retirement plan fiduciaries who make investment and proxy voting decisions that derive from ESG concerns, and may impact investor behavior at public retailers.
Continue Reading Department of Labor Issues New Guidance on ESG Investing

If 2017 is any indication, the new year will bring a fresh cascade of changes – both announced and unannounced, anticipated and unanticipated – in the business immigration landscape. Few, if any, of these changes are expected to be good news for U.S. businesses and the foreign workers they employ.
Continue Reading Buckle Your Seatbelts: 2018 Will Be a Watershed Year in Business Immigration

Earlier this month, the Department of Labor (“DOL”) dropped its defense of an Obama-era regulation that sought to increase the salary level for overtime-exempt employees from $23,660 per year to $47,476 per year. The regulation had been set to take effect in November 2016, but a last-minute preliminary injunction issued by a federal district court in Texas stayed the implementation of the regulation.

In the preliminary injunction ruling, the district court ruled that the new $47,476 salary threshold exceeded the scope of the DOL’s authority because such a high salary level had the effect of making an employee’s salary—and not their primary duty—the determinative factor in the exemption inquiry. Importantly, the district court’s preliminary injunction ruling went well beyond the appropriateness of the particular salary level at issue in the new regulation, and instead expressed the broader view that the DOL lacked the authority to impose any salary level requirement (regardless of the level of salary chosen) because the relevant provision of the FLSA focused on an employee’s duties, not their salary. 
Continue Reading DOL Drops Appellate Defense of Overtime Rule

On June 7, 2017, the Department of Labor announced that it is withdrawing two administrative interpretations issued by the Department of Labor under the Obama administration in 2015 and 2016 relating to misclassification of independent contractors and joint employment.
Continue Reading DOL Announces Rollback of Policies on Joint Employment and Employee Classification

Under the Fair Labor Standards Act, employers who use a tip credit to satisfy their minimum wage obligations for tipped employees must follow certain rules related to those tips. One of those rules relates to the use of tip pools – i.e., pooling of tips received by multiple tipped employees and then dividing the total among the pool participants based on a specified formula.
Continue Reading Ninth Circuit Approves DOL Regulation Expanding Tip-Pooling Rules to All Employers