On August 18, 2022, the Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs (OFCCP) issued unpublished notice of a broad Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) that impacts the federal contracting community.
On August 18, 2022, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) published a proposed rule in the Federal Register that would grant it broader authority to permit alternative document inspection procedures for I-9 document verification in lieu of the physical inspection requirement.
In a decision issued on August 11, 2022, the Nevada Supreme Court declined to recognize recreational marijuana use as a “lawful” activity for purposes of the state’s law providing employment protections for “lawful activities” or “lawful off-duty conduct” outside of work.
After more than two years of delay and amendment, the District of Columbia’s Ban on Non-Compete Agreements Amendment Act of 2020, which was introduced in the pre-pandemic days of 2020, will finally take legal effect on October 1, 2022. Efforts to amend the 2020 act culminated in the Non-Compete Clarification Amendment Act of 2022 (D.C. Act 24-526), which Mayor Muriel Bowser signed into law on July 27, 2022.
Legalization of medical and recreational marijuana use continues to spread across the United States despite the drug remaining a Schedule I controlled substance under federal law. This comes as respondents to Ogletree Deakins’ recent survey report, Strategies and Benchmarks for the Workplace: Ogletree’s Survey of Key Decision-Makers, indicated that keeping up with marijuana laws is already one of the most challenging areas of multi-jurisdictional compliance for employers.
With little press coverage, Illinois just amended the Nurse Agency Licensing Act (House Bill (HB) 4666) to prohibit noncompete agreements between nurse staffing agencies and nurses or certified nursing assistants (CNAs) and impose additional reporting requirements.
The Beltway Buzz is a weekly update summarizing labor and employment news from inside the Beltway and clarifying how what’s happening in Washington, D.C. could impact your business.
Employers may be surprised to learn that certain employees with greater than five years of military leave may still have reemployment rights under the Uniformed Services Employment and Reemployment Rights Act of 1994 (USERRA). USERRA has numerous exemptions to the statute’s five-year service limit, and employers may need to consult an employees’ orders and discharge documents (DD-214 or NGB 22) before denying an employee reemployment rights under USERRA.
The federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) is holding off on deciding whether to revoke final approval of Arizona’s occupational safety and health (OSH) plan. On August 10, 2022, OSHA said it is extending the comment period on a proposed rule to revoke the state’s approval for another 60 days and postponed a public hearing tentatively scheduled for August 16, 2022.
On August 11, 2022, the U. S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) updated its guidance in light of the “high levels of vaccine- and infection-induced immunity and the availability of effective treatments and prevention tools.”
On August 1, 2022, the Court of Appeal of the State of California, in Martinez v. Cot’n Wash, Inc., resolved two outstanding issues in the website accessibility field in a way that limits the reach of the Unruh Civil Rights Act (Unruh Act) as part of a growing resistance in the judiciary to an onslaught of website accessibility claims.
Retailers’ virtual “try-on” features have come under attack lately by lawsuits claiming violations of consumers’ biometric privacy rights. The increasing risk of litigation highlights a new area of compliance concern for retailers as online shopping has become the new normal for many consumers.
On August 2, 2022, the Seattle City Council voted to repeal the city’s $4 per hour COVID-19 pandemic “hazard pay” requirements related to grocery employees. Seattle Mayor Bruce Harrell approved the measure the next day.
The Colorado General Assembly was busy drafting and passing numerous employment laws during its 2022 legislative session, creating a wave of change for employers in the Centennial State.
The Colorado Department of Labor and Employment (CDLE) has been busy this summer with the release of several Interpretive Notice & Formal Opinions (INFOs), providing guidance on the evolving landscape of Colorado employment law.
U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) is encouraging certain employment-based adjustment of status (green card) applicants with approved I-140 petitions to complete their medical examinations before the end of the fiscal year (FY) on September 30, 2022.
The U.S. Architectural and Transportation Barriers Compliance Board (commonly known as the Access Board) announced that it intends to issue an Advance Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (ANPRM) under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) and the Architectural Barriers Act (ABA) in August 2022 that would create scoping and technical standards for self-service transaction devices.
On April 13, 2022, Alabama Governor Kay Ivey approved an act establishing the Alabama Workforce and Wage Gap Task Force. The task force will “identify evidence-based policies to assist lawmakers in implementing laws to close the wage gap” in Alabama by investigating the root causes of pay disparities.
Mexico’s Ministry of the Interior (Secretaría de Gobernación) has determined that all Brazilian nationals who intend to travel to Mexico as visitors without permission to perform remunerated activities (tourism/business) must obtain stamped visas in their passports prior to their travel.
The Beltway Buzz is a weekly update summarizing labor and employment news from inside the Beltway and clarifying how what’s happening in Washington, D.C. could impact your business.
On August 4, 2022, the Biden administration declared the monkeypox outbreak a public health emergency. The declaration follows the World Health Organization’s (WHO) declaration last month of monkeypox as a public health emergency of international concern.
Earlier this year, the New Jersey Division on Civil Rights (DCR) issued proposed regulations to allow employers to satisfy the state’s Law Against Discrimination (LAD) and Family Leave Act (NJFLA) poster requirements via an internet or intranet site rather than a conventional bulletin board in the workplace. The proposed regulations also imposed a new annual LAD and NJFLA notice distribution requirement. Those regulations became final on August 1, 2022.
On August 5, 2022, new Pennsylvania state wage-and-hour regulations for tipped and salaried nonexempt workers under the Pennsylvania Minimum Wage Act (PMWA) go into effect.
On July 26, 2022, Massachusetts Governor Charlie Baker signed into law “An Act Prohibiting Discrimination Based on Natural and Protective Hairstyles,” also known as the Massachusetts CROWN Act.
On September 15, 2022, the California Occupational Safety and Health Standards Board will continue the long and arduous journey to establish COVID-19 safety measures in the workplace. Since the California Division of Occupational Safety and Health’s (Cal/OSHA) initial ETS took effect in November 2020, the Standards Board has addressed the evolving workplace safety challenges with a series of updates.
For the second time in six months, frequently asked question (FAQ) guidance from federal regulators is calling attention to the requirement that employer-sponsored health plans provide coverage for women, without any cost sharing, for the full range of contraceptive methods approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA).
The Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA) recently announced that it is implementing a silica enforcement initiative focused on reducing exposures to respirable crystalline silica.
Every six years, all preapproved defined contribution retirement plans (such as 401(k) plans) must be restated in new plan documents that have fresh approval from the Internal Revenue Service (IRS). The deadline to adopt the newest preapproved documents was July 31, 2022.
E-Verify is phasing out a policy instituted at the onset of the coronavirus pandemic that had granted employees additional time to contact the Social Security Administration (SSA) to resolve discrepancies with their E-Verify submissions.
Earlier today, the Michigan Court of Claims issued a stay of its July 19, 2022, decision in Mothering Justice v. Nessel that had reinstated ballot initiatives that would have drastically changed the state’s paid medical leave and minimum wage laws. The stay is in place until February 19, 2023. This means that the adopted and amended versions of these laws will remain in place for now.
