Workforce Bulletin

On Epstein Becker Green's Management Memo blog, our colleague Adam C. Abrahms writes about the Department of Labor's delay, once again, of its timeline for finalizing the Persuader Rule.

We recommend this recent client alert on Epstein Becker Green's website: "Special Immigration Alert: The Immigration Ripple Effect of a Government Shutdown," by Robert Groban, Jr., Pierre Georges Bonnefil, Patrick Brady, Jang Im, and Greta Ravitsky, our colleagues at Epstein Becker Green.

Following is an excerpt:

The looming prospect of a Government shutdown will have a significant impact on the immigration process. Activities of the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) will be largely unaffected because it is funded by the fees it collects. The shutdown ...

By Jordan B. Schwartz and Eric J. Conn

On March 18, 2013, President Obama nominated Thomas E. Perez, a Harvard Law School graduate and current federal prosecutor with a long track record of defending civil rights and vulnerable workers, to become the next U.S. Secretary of Labor.  Perez would replace Seth Harris, the Acting Secretary of Labor and former Deputy Secretary of Labor, who has been filling the role since Secretary Hilda Solis resigned from the post in January.

Thomas Perez’s Background 

Since October 2009, Perez has served as the Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Rights Division at the U.S. Department of Justice.  From 2006 to 2009, Perez served as Maryland’s Secretary of Labor.  In that capacity, he led efforts to target Maryland companies who were engaging in workplace fraud by imposing new restrictions on employees who had been misclassified as independent contractors.  Perez’s efforts led to the implementation of Maryland’s Workplace Fraud Act of 2009, with him stating that the Act would “ensure that employers who attempt to cheat the system, their workers, and their competitors, will pay a steep price for their actions.”

During his tenure as Maryland’s Secretary of Labor, where his jurisdiction included Maryland’s Occupational Safety and Health Division, Perez distinguished himself as a strong and vocal defender of safety protections for Maryland workers.  According to Fred Mason, the president of the Maryland State and District of Columbia AFL-CIO, Perez fought to increase funding for the state occupational safety and health plan, which had been underfunded under Governor Robert Ehrlich.  Specifically, Mason stated that “that department went for a couple years with essentially no money to hire people to enforce laws that were already on the books.”  After Perez took office, “we began to make a comeback of sorts, in terms of having the necessary workers to do the inspections.”  Similarly, Peg Seminario, safety and health director at AFL-CIO, said she considered Perez “an excellent choice” to head the Labor Department.

The Nomination of Thomas Perez 

At a time when the President has promised to create more jobs and overhaul immigration policy, Mr. Obama has presented Mr. Perez, who would be the only Hispanic in the cabinet, as an American immigration success story, whose own history would help him tackle important current controversial issues.  At the White House on March 18, Obama called Perez a “consensus builder” who “understands that our economy works best when the middle class and those working to get into the middle class have the security they need on the job, a democratic voice in the workplace, everybody playing by the same set of rules.”  At the same press conference, Perez stated that:

“as you well know, our nation still faces critical economic challenges, and the department’s mission is as important as ever. . . . I am confident that together with our partners in organized labor, the business community, grass-roots communities, Republicans, Democrats, and independents alike, we can keep making progress for all working families.”

Not surprisingly, this nomination has drawn praise from worker advocates, and most Democrats have expressed a great deal of enthusiasm for this nomination.  Senator Patrick Leahy said in a statement that as a former Secretary of Labor in Maryland “and a fierce defender of workers’ rights and civil rights, [Perez] is uniquely situated to serve in this important post at a critical time when Congress will be considering issues like immigration reform, reducing unemployment, and continuing our economic recovery.”

Congressional Republicans, however, have indicated a potentially rocky confirmation process and voiced their concern that Perez is the “wrong man for this job.”  In particular, Senator Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) has stated that “this is an unfortunate and needlessly divisive nomination” as “Mr. Perez has aggressively sought ways to allow the hiring of more illegal workers.”  Additionally, Representative John Kline (R-MN), chairman of the Education and the Workforce Committee and thus a key house Republican on worker safety issues, has stated that “our country needs a labor secretary who will put America’s jobs before his own” and cited “troubling allegations in the media and an independent investigation” about Perez.

The Confirmation Hearing 

During the April 18, 2013 confirmation hearing, Mr. Perez stated that he would seek a balance of protecting worker safety while also encouraging economic growth.  Specifically, Mr. Perez told the Senate, Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee that “job safety and job growth are not mutually exclusive” and thus “it is not necessary to choose between one and the other.”  When asked what his top priority would be as labor secretary, he responded “jobs, jobs, jobs.”  He also testified that other priorities would be reauthorizing the Workplace Investment Act with bipartisan support, pension security, enforcement of wage and hour laws, job safety and equal opportunity in the workplace.

The Legal 500 United States, now in its 26th year, collects feedback from more than 180,000 in-house counsel and lawyers to select the leading law firms and lawyers in specific legal practice areas and industries.  The Legal 500 is an independent guide, and firms and individuals are recommended purely on merit. 

In 2012, both of Epstein Becker Green’s founding practices - Health Care and Life Sciences and Labor and Employment - as well as several individual attorneys, were recognized as leaders in their fields of practice.

For more information about the ranking and to read excerpts ...

By Eric J. Conn and Casey M. Cosentino

In what has been good news for hospitality employers, the past month has been a rough stretch for OSHA in terms of Injury and Illness Recordkeeping enforcement.  As we reported last month on the OSHA Law Update Blog, in March, the Seventh Circuit beat back OSHA’s attempt to expand the meaning of “work related” for purposes of determining whether an injury or illnesses is recordable.  Then last month, the District of Columbia Circuit further and dramatically limited OSHA’s authority to cite Recordkeeping violations, by insisting that the ...

By: Paul Rosenberg

On December 9, 2011, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia (“the Court”) refused to enforce a National Labor Relations Board (“NLRB”) decision that a hotel unlawfully suspended hospitality workers who engaged in a work stoppage.  Fortuna Enters. LP v. NLRB, D.C. Cir., No. 10-1272 (December 9, 2011).  In this case, UNITE HERE – the largest hospitality union in the country – was seeking to organize employees of the hotel. While the union organizing drive was ongoing, the hotel suspended an employee pending an investigation into whether ...

By:  Kara M. Maciel and Mark M. Trapp

On August 23, 2011 the Washington D.C. area experienced a 5.9 magnitude earthquake. A week later, a “labor law earthquake” of far greater magnitude had its epicenter in a federal agency in D.C. In the coming weeks and months, its aftershocks will be felt by unprepared employers, particularly those operating hotels, restaurants, spas and clubs in the hospitality industry.

In an opinion that America’s largest private sector labor union called a“monumental victor[y] … for unions,” the National Labor Relations Board ...

By:  Kara M. Maciel and Evan Rosen 

In recent weeks the Obama Administration’s National Labor Relations Board (the “Board”) has been very active in soliciting public comments and amicus briefs on a wide range of decisions and proposed regulations that could drastically change the labor relations landscape. One of these topics are the rules surrounding the scope of union solicitation on a non-unionized employer’s private property. 

We have received many inquiries from our clients about the Board's review of whether to change the solicitation rules. In light of the ...

By: Jay P. Krupin and Kara M. Maciel

Last week, on November 9, 2010, housekeepers employed by Hyatt Hotels filed complaints with OSHA alleging injuries sustained on the job. The complaints were filed in eight cities across the country, including Chicago, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Long Beach, San Antonio, Honolulu and Indianapolis.  Similar OSHA actions may occur in Boston, NYC, DC, Atlanta, Las Vegas, Miami, and Orlando with higher concentrations of hotel properties. This is the first time that employees of a single private employer have filed multi-city OSHA complaints, and it ...