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Category: Agency Enforcement

Ruling by Eleventh Circuit in EEOC v. Eberspaecher Limits Scope of Agency Subpoena

The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC or Commission) has broad authority under the statutes it enforces to investigate alleged violations, including the right to demand relevant information. While the federal courts are inclined to defer to the EEOC’s often broad information requests, this does not always happen, as EEOC v. Eberspaecher North America illustrates. In Eberspaecher, a split three-judge panel of...
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Category: Affirmative Action and Diversity

Center for Workplace Compliance Files Comments Urging OMB To Reject OFCCP’s Revised Scheduling Letter

Our affiliated non-profit association, the Center for Workplace Compliance (CWC) has filed comments with the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) urging OMB to reject burdensome changes that the Labor Department’s Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs (OFCCP) has proposed to its compliance audit scheduling letter and accompanying itemized listing. OFCCP’s revised scheduling letter would require covered federal...
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Category: Agency Enforcement

DOL Issues Guidance on “PUMP Act” Protections for Nursing Mothers

The Department of Labor (DOL) recently published guidance that interprets the provisions of the Providing Urgent Maternal Protections for Nursing Mothers Act (PUMP Act), which Congress passed late last year. While the expanded protections do not require employers to pay for break time for expressing milk, the guidance provides several examples where break time would be compensable. The guidance also...
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Category: Agency Enforcement

NLRB General Counsel Abruzzo Continues Push To Overturn Trump-Era Precedent

Jennifer Abruzzo, a former union official and current National Labor Relations Board (NLRB or Board) General Counsel (GC), is actively working to make U.S. labor law more union-friendly. Her position as GC—which gives her unreviewable discretion to decide which alleged labor law violations to prosecute, and by extension, the legal theories on which the Board will rule—affords her the potential...
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Category: Agency Enforcement

OFCCP Submits Proposed Burdensome New Scheduling Letter to OMB for Approval

The Labor Department’s Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs (OFCCP) is asking the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) to approve a revised Scheduling Letter and Itemized Listing that would substantially increase the administrative burden on a federal contractor scheduled for a compliance audit. If OMB approves it, the revised scheduling letter would require covered contractors to submit...
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Category: Agency Enforcement

Does Modified EEOC–CA Worksharing Agreement Mean More Dual Charge Investigations?

A change in the worksharing agreement between the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) and California’s Civil Rights Department (CRD) suggests that an employer may have to respond to investigations by both agencies stemming from the same charge. The change appears to be driven by the agencies’ discrimination investigations of the company Activision Blizzard, but it has implications well beyond...
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Category: Agency Enforcement

Civil Penalties for Federal Workplace Law Violations Are Significantly Higher for 2023

Pursuant to the Federal Civil Penalties Inflation Adjustment Act Improvements Act of 2015 (the Inflation Adjustment Act), the cost of violating employment-related federal laws and regulations enforced by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL), and the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) has increased by more than 7% for 2023. The Inflation Adjustment Act requires federal...
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Category: Agency Enforcement

New Biden E.O. Calls for Consideration of “Distributive Impacts and Equity” in Rulemaking

President Biden issued an executive order April 6, 2023, directing federal agencies to consider the “distributional consequences” of regulations to ensure that regulatory initiatives appropriately benefit and do not inappropriately burden disadvantaged, vulnerable, or marginalized communities. E.O. 14094, entitled “Modernizing Regulatory Review,” instructs federal agencies to give greater thought to the “distributive impacts and equity” of proposed regulatory changes, while...
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Category: Agency Enforcement

Comments to NLRB Oppose Agency’s One-Sided Joint Employment Proposal

Our affiliated non-profit association, the Center for Workplace Compliance (CWC), has submitted written comments to the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB or Board) expressing strong opposition to the agency’s proposed rule for determining whether two employers are acting jointly for purposes of triggering obligations and responsibilities under the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA). If adopted as proposed, the rule would...
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Category: Agency Enforcement

California Privacy Act Covers Employers Beginning 1/1/2023; Still Awaiting Regulatory Guidance

For employers that operate in California, the exemption from coverage under the state’s sweeping California privacy law is about to expire, and as of January 1, 2023, any employer with at least $25 million in gross annual revenue will be required to comply. The 2018 California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA), as amended by the 2020 California Privacy Rights Act (CPRA),...

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