Insights

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Category: Arbitration and Dispute Resolution

Supreme Court Provides Guidance on Scope of FAA’s Transportation Worker Exemption

Over the last two decades, the U.S. Supreme Court has made it clear that the Federal Arbitration Act (FAA) establishes a public policy favoring arbitration of disputes in lieu of litigation. There is one part of the FAA, however, that exempts certain workers “engaged in foreign or interstate commerce,” thus permitting these workers to sue in court. In recent years,...
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Category: Agency Enforcement

Plaintiffs’ Lawyer Karla Gilbride Tapped To Be EEOC’s New General Counsel

The White House announced last week that President Biden intends to nominate plaintiffs’ lawyer and employment arbitration opponent Karla Gilbride to serve as the new General Counsel (GC) of the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC or Commission), a position that has been vacant since Biden fired former General Counsel Sharon Fast Gustafson fifteen months ago. Ms. Gilbride currently is...
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Category: Agency Enforcement

OFCCP Now Saying That Small AAPs Must Be Added to AAP-VI

In an unexpected and frankly disturbing new development, especially in light of its timing and earlier agency guidance, the Labor Department’s Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs (OFCCP) announced late last week that establishments with fewer than 50 employees must be added to the agency’s online Affirmative Action Program Verification Interface (AAP-VI) Contractor Portal, if the contractor maintains an affirmative...
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Category: Agency Enforcement

What To Expect From OFCCP’s Upcoming “Modernizing AAPs” Proposal

Sometime later this year, perhaps as early as September, the Labor Department’s Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs (OFCCP) is expected to publish a formal proposal entitled Modernizing Affirmative Action Programs, Recordkeeping, and Other Components of the Executive Order 11246 Supply and Service Obligations for Federal Contractors and Subcontractors. The “Modernizing AAPs” proposal is the most ambitious of several new...
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Category: Agency Enforcement

Court Rules Challenge by Texas to EEOC’s SOGI Discrimination Guidance Can Go Forward

The State of Texas has cleared its first legal hurdle in a lawsuit filed by the state in federal court challenging guidance issued last year by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) regarding discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity (SOGI). The ruling by a federal district court in Texas clears the way for the court to begin considering...
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Category: Agency Enforcement

EEOC Holds Public Meeting on Discrimination in the Construction Industry

The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC or Commission) recently held a virtual public hearing to examine what the agency characterizes as the “severe and pervasive” discrimination and harassment against women and racial and ethnic minorities that has occurred in the U.S. construction industry. The hearing comes in the wake of the enactment last year of massive federal infrastructure legislation,...
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Category: Agency Enforcement

OFCCP Posts New “CSAL” List Targeting 400 Establishments for Compliance Audits

The Labor Department’s Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs (OFCCP) has posted online a new list – formally known as the Corporate Scheduling Announcement List (CSAL) – targeting 400 federal contractor establishments for an upcoming compliance evaluation. The new FY 2022 CSAL identifies the type of review for which each entity on the list has been flagged, broken down as...
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Category: Agency Enforcement

OFCCP Introduces AAP-VI Bulk Upload Option for Multi-Establishment Contractors

The Labor Department’s Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs (OFCCP) has announced an option for federal contractors and subcontractors with 100 or more establishments (or functions) to upload or modify establishment information into the agency’s Affirmative Action Program Verification Interface (AAP-VI) Contractor Portal. As we reported previously, all supply and service contractors subject to OFCCP’s jurisdiction must certify by June...
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Category: Arbitration and Dispute Resolution

Supreme Court Issues Another Important Arbitration Ruling in Morgan v. Sundance

A unanimous decision issued by the U.S. Supreme Court this week in the case of Morgan v. Sundance, Inc., No. 21-328 (U.S. May 23, 2022), the latest in a series of important arbitration rulings handed down by the High Court in recent years, creates even further incentive for an employer to act promptly when it seeks to compel arbitration. The...
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Category: Wage and Hour

House Committee Approves Massive Pro-Worker Overhaul of Fair Labor Standards Act

The Democrat majority on the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Education and Labor recently approved a massive rewrite of the federal Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), the federal law that sets wage and hour requirements. Among other things, the bill (H.R. 7701) would put the federal government in charge of enforcing private wage agreements, add burdensome new employer disclosure...

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