Bernie Sanders proposes a bill that’s not going anywhere… yet   On March 13, 2024, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) introduced legislation to reduce the standard workweek in the United States from 40 hours to 32. If enacted, employers of hourly or non-exempt full-time salaried workers would be required to treat 32 hours as “full-time.” Working over 32 hours would require overtime pay. Sanders’s bill also includes provisions to prevent employers from cutting pay to coincide with fewer work hours. When promoting the bill during the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee hearing ..read more

E-Verify+ is coming soon   The integration of E-Verify with Form I-9 continues to inch along and should be completed soon. Because these tools — and their integration — represent such a vital aspect of the employment eligibility verification process in the United States today, staying current is imperative. Under federal law, all employers in the United States must complete and retain a Form I-9 for each person they hire for employment. Employers can find Form I-9 on the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) website. E-Verify is a voluntary web-based system that com ..read more

OSHA’s Controversial Walkaround Rule Becomes Final On April 1, 2024, the Occupational Health and Safety Administration (OSHA) published the final rule on worker walkaround representation. The rulemaking has been on a very fast track, progressing from a notice of proposed rulemaking last summer to the final rule in just seven months. While the final rule reflects only a slight change in wording from the existing rule, its impact is substantial. It allows workers to designate a non-employee—including a labor union representative—to represent them during the “walkaround” part of an OSHA inspecti ..read more

The final rule requires the development of safer alternatives in chemical manufacturing, processing, and storage. The United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) recently announced the imminent publication of its Safer Communities by Chemical Accident Prevention Rule, which will significantly change the Clean Air Act Risk Management Program (RMP). The new rule — in the works since an ammonium nitrate fertilizer explosion killed 15 people in 2013 — will cover 11,740 facilities, including chemical plants, warehouses, and other storage facilities. A pre-publication version of the rule wa ..read more

Diversity in the United States OMB updates how it classifies race and ethnicity   The White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) published significant revisions to Statistical Policy Directive No.15: Standards for Maintaining, Collecting, and Presenting Federal Data on Race and Ethnicity. This directive was implemented nearly 50 years ago, in 1977, and it was only revised once, in 1997, since then. The changes, announced on March 28, 2024, establish a new racial-ethnic category and combine questions about race and ethnicity on federal forms. Respondents are encouraged to select m ..read more

Walmart Blocks DOJ Proceedings Over Unconstitutional Authority – Orr & Reno There’s been an interesting development in the United States District Court for the Southern District of Georgia, Statesboro Division. In Walmart vs King, published on March 25, 2024, Chief Justice J. Randal Hall granted the Plaintiff’s motion for summary judgment “to stop administrative proceedings in a federal agency that are being conducted by an administrative law judge (ALJ) who is unconstitutionally shielded from the President’s supervision.” Walmart questioned the constitutional authority of Administrativ ..read more

EEOC’s Data Harvesting Begins on April 30! EEO-1 Reports are due on June 4 As most private employers already know, when you have at least 100 employees — or are a federal contractor with at least 50 employees — you must submit some fundamental demographic data about your workforce to the government each year. Why? Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 requires employers to keep records about the composition of their workforce and be able to produce these records whenever the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) — or any other government agency — wants to see them. The EEOC uses t ..read more

The 2020 rule remains in place, for now, as the case moves through the courts.  On March 8, 2024, Judge J. Campbell Barker of the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Texas vacated the National Labor Relations Board’s (NLRB) new standard for determining when employers are “joint employers.” The United States Chamber of Commerce, the American Hotel and Lodging Association, the International Franchise Association, the National Retail Federation, and other business groups had joined forces to sue the NLRB and block the enactment of the new standard, which was scheduled to ..read more

On February 9, 2024, the United States Department of Labor’s (DOL) Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) sent its “worker walkaround” final rule to the Office of Management and Budget’s (OMB) Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA) for final review. The proposed rule, which has been in the rulemaking pipeline since early last year, will amend the existing regulation 29 CFR § 1903.8(c), which specifies what third parties can be “employee representatives.” As proposed, the new rule will empower employees to choose from a much more comprehensive range of third-party pos ..read more

Employers and applicants will soon be paying bigger filing fees for many employer based visa petitions. The United States Citizenship and Immigration Service (USCIS) announced the new fees in the Federal Register on January 31, 2024, effective on April 1. Fees haven’t been raised since 2016.  The USCIS is a fee-funded agency that processes applications for various immigration-related credentials and authorizations (i.e., visas/green cards). Almost all immigration forms require a filing fee. In some instances, the applicant might qualify for a fee waiver.  One of the most dramatic cha ..read more