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Category: Executive Order

Federal Appeals Court Upholds Biden’s Federal Contractor Minimum Wage

President Biden had the authority to establish a minimum wage for federal contractors that exceeds the federal statutory minimum wage, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit ruled April 30, 2024. In Bradford v. DOL, the Tenth Circuit became the first federal appeals court to rule on a challenge to the federal contractor minimum wage, although appeals are...
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Category: FLSA

DOL Raises White Collar Overtime Threshold by 65%, Leaves Employers Little Time To Comply

The U.S. Department of Labor has issued a final rule revising the white-collar exemptions to the Fair Labor Standards Act’s overtime rules that will make thousands of additional salaried executive, administrative, and professional employees eligible for overtime pay. The rule will increase the minimum amount that a salaried employee must be paid to be exempt from overtime pay—from the current...
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Category: Appropriations

Congress Flat Funds OFCCP, NLRB and Other Workplace Regulators for Rest of FY 2024

Congress and the White House have finally reached a spending deal, six months after the government’s 2024 fiscal year began, with the approval of the Further Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2024 (H.R. 2882). This legislation funds a large portion of the government—including the Department of Labor (DOL) and the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB)—through September 30, 2024. It follows an earlier...
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Category: FLSA

DOL’s Controversial Independent Contractor Rule Goes Into Effect

The Department of Labor’s new independent contractor rule for worker classification under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) went into effect March 11, 2024, although it is subject to several legal challenges. This latest version of the ever-changing standard lists six non-weighted economic factors to consider when deciding whether a person is an independent contractor or an employee. The new...
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Category: State and Local Law

CWC Interstate: February 2024 Update

The Center for Workplace Compliance (CWC), our affiliated nonprofit membership association, presents its latest update of workplace-related state and local developments that have occurred since its December 2023 Interstate memo and the 2023 round-up that it published in January. Many of the laws discussed relate to new state or local provisions regarding paid leave and pay transparency. CWC members can read...
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Category: Agency Enforcement

DOL’s Release of FMLA/FLSA Enforcement Data Shows Little Change From Previous Year

Enforcement statistics related to the Family and Medical Leave Act and the Fair Labor Standards Act do not show much change from fiscal year 2022 to fiscal year 2023, according to data published by the Labor Department’s (DOL) Wage and Hour Division (WHD). The data showed that in FY 2023, WHD closed 334 cases in which it found an FMLA...
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Category: Data and Statistics

Employment-Related Lawsuits Filed in Federal Court Increased in 2023

Total employment-related lawsuits filed in federal courts increased by nearly 9% in fiscal year 2023 over the preceding year, according to statistics from the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts. A 21% increase in suits filed under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) led the uptick, which ended a four-year downward trend in the filing of employment-related federal lawsuits. Despite the...
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Category: FLSA

DOL Finalizes Rule Making It Harder To Show Worker Is Independent Contractor

The U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) has finalized a rule that determines whether a worker is an employee or an independent contractor under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA). The new rule will go into effect March 11, 2024. It rescinds regulations issued during the Trump Administration and adopts a controversial six-part economic reality test applied during the Obama Administration. Although...
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Category: EEOC

Government’s Latest Semi-Annual Regulatory Agenda Shows New Activity by the EEOC

This memo summarizes workplace-related regulatory priorities that the Biden Administration listed in its latest semi-annual regulatory agenda. This memo, as well as a chart prepared by our affiliated nonprofit membership association, the Center for Workplace Compliance (CWC), provide a user-friendly digest of regulatory developments that we are following. Notably, for the first time in several years, the agenda lists several new...
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Category: FLSA

Six States Will Have Overtime Minimum Salary Thresholds Higher Than Fed as of 1/1/24

To be exempt from overtime pay under federal law, an executive, administrative, or professional employee must be paid a weekly salary of at least $684 (equivalent to an annual salary of $35,568), regardless of the employee’s job duties. The Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) does not preempt individual states from enacting their own more expansive wage and hour laws, however, and...

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