The federal Fair Labor Standards Act (“FLSA”) provides for the payment of overtime at the rate of one and a half times an employee’s regular rate of pay for each hour worked in excess of 40 during a 7-day workweek. There are a number of exemptions to the FLSA’s overtime pay requirements, the details of
On August 23, 2021, the FDA announced the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine is now fully approved. With this news, more and more employers are adopting, or considering whether to adopt, vaccine mandates for their workforces. One issue that a vaccine mandate raises is whether employers can lawfully ask job applicants about their COVID-19 vaccination status after
On August 13, 2021, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) updated its COVID-19 guidance for non-healthcare employers. The updates to OSHA’s “Protecting Workers: Guidance on Mitigating and Preventing the Spread of COVID-19 in the Workplace” publication follow the CDC’s July 27, 2021 updated mask and testing recommendations for fully vaccinated people.
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“Long COVID” or “long-haul COVID” are terms coined to describe a range of new or ongoing systems that can last weeks or months after first being infected with the COVID-19 virus. The CDC’s website lists many commonly reported symptoms among “long haulers,” which list includes:
With many employees shifting to work remotely long-term in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, employers must be mindful of how to comply with their employment-law posting requirements vis-à-vis their remote workers. The commonly used laminated collage of posters hanging on an employee bulletin board back at the office will not suffice for these workers.
Several significant expansions of Texas sexual harassment law will take effect on September 1, 2021 (see Senate Bill 45 – TX SB45 | 2021-2022 | 87th Legislature | LegiScan). These expansions make it critical for virtually all Texas businesses to adopt formal written policies and train workers on the prohibitions against sexual harassment.
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On July 9, 2021, President Biden signed the Executive Order on Promoting Competition in the American Economy While the Order is aspirational and a policy road map, it does not operate to ban, or otherwise restrict in any way, the enforcement of employee noncompete agreements.
In the week that followed, many news outlets published articles
On January 12, 2021, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit vastly changed the landscape for collective action wage and hour claims under the federal Fair Labor Standards Act.
In Swales v. KLLM Transport Services, L.L.C., the Fifth Circuit rejected the lenient standard typically employed by federal district courts for “conditionally certifying”
On Monday, December 21, 2020, Congress passed another stimulus package to provide certain coronavirus relief for individuals and businesses, among other things. One looming question was whether Congress would extend the emergency paid sick leave (EPSL) and emergency paid family leave (EFMLA) provisions of the Families First Coronavirus Response Act (FFCRA) into next year?
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For those who think the chance of being assessed penalties for non-compliance with the Affordable Care Act are slim to none, think again. The IRS’ efforts to enforce the ACA’s employer mandate are alive and kicking. Since late November 2017, the IRS has been sending out proposed penalty notices to companies they believe were not