In April, we wrote about the U.S. Department of Labor’s new regulations set to take effect on July 1, 2024.  These new regulations significantly increase the minimum salary required for employers to meet the Fair Labor Standards Act’s white-collar overtime exemptions. A number of legal challenges were filed seeking to block the new regulations from taking effect.  Late on Friday, June 28, 2024, a federal court in Texas issued a narrow injunction blocking enforcement of these new requirements, but only against the State of Texas and only in Texas’s capacity as an employer.  Altho ..read more

On June 24, 2024, a federal judge in Texas issued a nationwide injunction to block parts of the Department of Labor’s recent regulations updating Davis-Bacon prevailing wage requirements on federally funded construction projects.  The preliminary injunction prevents the DOL from enforcing three provisions of the updated regulations while the litigation proceeds. Although the preliminary injunction is only temporary, the court’s decision to issue the injunction is based on the court’s conclusion that the plaintiffs are likely to succeed in demonstrating that these challenged aspects of the ..read more

  The Supreme Court of the United States recently unanimously ruled against the National Labor Relations Board (“NLRB”) in Starbucks Corp. v. McKinney. The decision reversed the NLRB’s attempt to change the standard for evaluating the right to injunctive relief, and requires courts to analyze four factors before issuing a preliminary injunction to restrict an employer’s actions in pending cases involving labor disputes. The four-factor test is consistent with the test used by courts in the context of other types of requests for temporary injunctive relief. Often, the NLRB will seek injunc ..read more

On May 1, 2024, the Pennsylvania Commonwealth Court vacated an arbitration award involving the Pennsylvania State System of Higher Education Officers Association (“Association”) and a former University police officer who was fired due to offensive social media posts. In 2021, several anonymous University students (known as the “Activists”) submitted screenshots of the Police Officer’s social media posts, which contained offensive comments regarding Muslims, the LGBTQ community, and racial minorities, to a website and Instagram account that is monitored by the University. Followi ..read more

On April 23, 2024, the Federal Trade Commission (“FTC”) issued a Final Rule (the “Rule”) prohibiting the use of non-compete restrictive covenants (with a limited exception) throughout the United States as an unfair method of competition under the FTC Act. The Rule is set to become effective 120 days after it is published in the Federal Register, but employers will face certain compliance obligations that will apply prior to the effective date. The Rule prohibits employers from: (1) entering into; (2) attempting to enter into; (3) enforcing; (4) attempting to enforce; or (5) representing that a ..read more

On April 23, 2024, the U.S. Department of Labor issued its Final Rule sharply increasing the minimum salary requirements for the Fair Labor Standards Act’s white-collar overtime exemptions.  These changes, if they ultimately take effect, will affect the overtime exemption eligibility for millions of currently exempt employees nationwide. Background and History The FLSA’s white-collar exemptions apply to “bona fide” executive, administrative, and professional employees and generally include both a minimum salary requirement and a duties test.  To establish that an employee is properly ..read more

Way back in 2018, we wrote about the Supreme Court of the United States’ decision in Janus, which held that compelling public sector employees to pay “fair share fees” to unions violates the First Amendment. As a refresher, a fair share fee is a fee that non-union members must pay to the union to cover the expenses incurred by the union in representing bargaining unit employees.  For the most part, the fair share fees were paid by employees who had opted out of becoming full, dues-paying union members. Janus made clear that fair share fees were illegal even where expressly authorized by s ..read more

On February 21, 2024, the National Labor Relations Board (“NLRB”) issued a decision finding that Home Depot violated Section 8(a)(1) of the National Labor Relations Act (“Act”) by using Home Depot’s dress code to require an employee to remove the acronym “BLM,” an initialism for “Black Lives Matter,” from the Employee’s work uniform. The decision was the latest in a run of NLRB decisions that employers should consider when applying workplace policies. The NLRB reversed an Administrative Law Judge (“ALJ”)’s holding that Home Depot did not violate the Act because “BLM” does not have an “objectiv ..read more

On January 9, 2024, the U.S. Department of Labor (“DOL”) issued a long-awaited Final Rule that addresses when a worker is properly classified as an independent contractor under the Fair Labor Standards Act (the “FLSA”).  Under its new Rule, independent contractors are characterized as those workers who, as a matter of economic reality, are not economically dependent on an employer for work; rather, they are in business for themselves. The FLSA establishes, among other things, the federal minimum wage and requires covered employers to pay their employees one and one-half times the employee ..read more

If you are gearing up for union negotiations in 2024, do not miss the opportunity to review current and past practices that may not have been incorporated into expiring collective bargaining agreements.  Trust me, it will be worth the effort to dig up and review all of the side letters, settlements and memoranda of agreement that the parties have entered into since the last CBA was signed.  You should insist that the Union engage in that effort too, especially if you intend to propose or freshen up an integration or zipper clause. What’s the Difference? Last week, the National Labor ..read more