Workforce Bulletin

On May 12, 2016, OSHA published significant amendments to its recordkeeping rule, requiring many employers to submit work-related injury and illness information to the agency electronically.  The amendments also include provisions designed to prevent employers from retaliating against employees for reporting injuries and illnesses at work.  The information employers provide will be “scrubbed” of personally identifiable information and published on OSHA’s website in a searchable format.

The Basics

Every workplace with 250 or more employees will be required to ...

The top story on Employment Law This Week: Casino trainees could be entitled to minimum wage.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit recently revived a class action suit from a group of trainees at a casino in Maryland. Applicants who wanted to work the casino's new table games were expected to attend a 12-week “dealer school,” during which they went mostly unpaid. Several of the trainees sued, alleging that the practice violated the Fair Labor Standards Act. Though the district court dismissed the case, the Fourth Circuit ruled that the company could be found to be the ...

The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) and the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health issued interim guidance on April 10, 2016, for protecting outdoor workers who may be exposed on the job to mosquitos and healthcare and laboratory workers exposed on the job to body fluids of individuals infected with Zika virus.  Although the guidance is not a standard or regulation, employers should be mindful that OSHA can always issue citations under the General Duty Clause (OSHA’s catch all provision requiring all employers to provide employees with safe ...

Whether time spent in training is compensable time under the Fair Labor Standards Act (“FLSA”) is an issue that the courts have addressed in a variety of contexts. A new Fourth Circuit decision – Harbourt v. PPE Casino Resorts Maryland, LLC – addressed that issue in the context of pre-hire training provided to some casino workers in Maryland and concluded that the casino workers alleged sufficient facts to proceed with their claims that they should have been paid for pre-hire training.

After Maryland legalized full-fledged casino gambling in November 2012, the state had a ...

Recently I attended the American Bar Association’s (“ABA”) 2016 mid-year National Symposium on Technology in Labor and Employment Law (“Conference”) in Washington, D.C.  The Conference highlighted a number of technology related issues that should be of interest to employers, such as the use artificial intelligence in the workplace, cybersecurity, and new trends in the National Labor Relations Board’s technology-based decisions and rulemaking.

One segment of the Conference that I found particularly interesting was "Technology in the Workplace: What’s Out ...

Technology employers should note that the Department of Labor’s Wage and Hour Division (“DOL”) has just released a new Family Medical Leave Act (“FMLA”) poster and The Employer’s Guide to The Family and Medical Leave Act (“Guide”).

New FMLA Poster

The FMLA requires covered employers to display a copy of the General FMLA Notice prominently in a conspicuous place. The new poster is more reader-friendly and better organized than the previous one. The font is larger and the poster contains a QR code that will connect the reader directly to the DOL homepage. According to ...

Financial services employers should note that the Department of Labor’s Wage and Hour Division (“DOL”) has just released a new Family Medical Leave Act (“FMLA”) poster and The Employer’s Guide to The Family and Medical Leave Act (“Guide”).

New FMLA Poster

The FMLA requires covered employers to display a copy of the General FMLA Notice prominently in a conspicuous place. The new poster is more reader-friendly and better organized than the previous one. The font is larger and the poster contains a QR code that will connect the reader directly to the DOL homepage ...

Retailers should note that the Department of Labor’s Wage and Hour Division (“DOL”) has just released a new Family Medical Leave Act (“FMLA”) poster and The Employer’s Guide to The Family and Medical Leave Act (“Guide”).

New FMLA Poster

The FMLA requires covered employers to display a copy of the General FMLA Notice prominently in a conspicuous place. The new poster is more reader-friendly and better organized than the previous one. The font is larger and the poster contains a QR code that will connect the reader directly to the DOL homepage. According to the DOL ...

Hospitality employers should note that the Department of Labor’s Wage and Hour Division (“DOL”) has just released a new Family Medical Leave Act (“FMLA”) poster and The Employer’s Guide to The Family and Medical Leave Act (“Guide”).

New FMLA Poster

The FMLA requires covered employers to display a copy of the General FMLA Notice prominently in a conspicuous place. The new poster is more reader-friendly and better organized than the previous one. The font is larger and the poster contains a QR code that will connect the reader directly to the DOL homepage. According to ...

[caption id="" align="alignright" width="98"] Jang Hyuk Im[/caption]

Many high-tech companies are recovering from the recent April mad-dash to file H-1B cap petitions allowing for the continued employment of their foreign student graduate population.  Since the H-1B cap season closed abruptly following the first week of April, and USCIS has completed its computer-generated lottery determining which of the 200,000-plus petitions submitted have been accepted for the limited 85,000 H-1B cap slots available, employers now must turn their attention immediately to define ...