Insights

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Category: Agency Enforcement

DOL Proposes More Employee-Friendly Independent Contractor Test Under the FLSA

As expected, the Biden Administration’s Department of Labor (DOL) has formally proposed rescinding interpretive regulations issued during the Trump Administration for determining whether workers are employees or independent contractors under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA). Instead, DOL is proposing to codify rules that will make it much more likely that an individual will be classified as an employee rather...
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Category: Agency Enforcement

Comments With EEOC Recommending Priorities for Agency’s Next Strategic Plan

Our affiliated non-profit association, the Center for Workplace Compliance (CWC), has submitted written comments with the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC or Commission) in response to the agency’s request for public input on the development of its next “Strategic Plan” and “Strategic Enforcement Plan” (SEP). Once finalized, these two documents will map out the EEOC’s priority enforcement and operational...
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Category: Immigration

USCIS Revises “Public Charge” Rule To Restore Pre-Trump Standard; Employer Impact Minimal

As expected, the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) component of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has issued a final rule modifying a Trump-era regulation that broadened the criteria under which the government could deny a petition to adjust immigration status or extend a stay because a migrant is, or is likely to become, “primarily dependent for subsistence”...
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Category: Affirmative Action and Diversity

Highlights From Most Recent EEOC-OFCCP “HIRE” Initiative Roundtable

Earlier this year, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) and the Department of Labor’s Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs (OFCCP) launched a joint effort dubbed the Hiring Initiative to Reimagine Equity (“HIRE”). Among other things, the HIRE initiative was created ostensibly for the purpose of identifying strategies to remove unnecessary barriers to hiring and to promote equity in the...
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Category: Government Contracts

Federal Contractor Minimum Wage Rates Will Increase on January 1, 2023

The U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) has issued notices announcing increases in the minimum wage rates established by two different Presidential Executive Orders (E.O.s), one signed by President Obama (E.O. 13658) and the other signed by President Biden (E.O. 14026), that set a higher minimum wage rate for work performed on certain government contracts. Pursuant to annual escalator clauses contained...
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Category: Featured

NYC Delays Enforcement of Its Artificial Intelligence Bias Audit Law Until April 15, 2023

The New York City Department of Consumer and Workplace Protection (DCWP) announced this week that, based on the “high volume” of public comments received, it has delayed from January 1 until April 15, 2023, its enforcement of the City’s controversial artificial intelligence law (Local Law 144). The AI law is scheduled to go into effect on January 1, 2023. The...
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Category: State and Local Law

NYC Issues Proposed Implementing Rules for Its New Artificial Intelligence Bias Audit Ordinance

As we previously reported, New York City adopted a new ordinance late last year (Local Law 144) that requires covered employers using artificial intelligence (AI) in their hiring efforts to conduct an independent bias audit of the AI tool and to publish the results of that audit. The ordinance, which is scheduled to go into effect on January 1, 2023,...
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Category: Immigration

Recent Bias Settlements Serve as a Reminder of IRCA’s Nondiscrimination Protections

The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) recently announced the settlement of some 20 enforcement actions brought against multiple employers involving allegations that job postings made on college career websites contained unlawful citizenship status restrictions in violation of the 1986 Immigration Reform and Control Act (IRCA), as amended. DOJ alleged that the settling employers advertised job postings on college career pages...
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Category: Government Contracts

Primer on OFCCP’s “Pre-Award Registry”

We have been receiving calls lately from some federal contractors regarding inquiries they are getting from federal contracting officers asking for an explanation as to why their company does not appear on the “Pre-Award Registry” maintained by the Labor Department’s Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs (OFCCP) “Pre-Award Registry,” and further requesting that they produce a “Notice of Compliance” issued...
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Category: Government Contracts

Making Your 503/VEVRAA AAPs “Available” To Remote Applicants and Employees

Longstanding regulations issued by the U.S. Labor Department’s Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs (OFCCP) implementing Section 503 of the Rehabilitation Act (Section 503) and Section 4212 of the Vietnam-Era Veterans’ Readjustment Assistance Act (VEVRAA) require covered federal contractors to make their written 503/VEVRAA affirmative action programs (AAPs) available to employees and applicants upon request, and further require that the...

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