Insights

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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: Arbitration and Dispute Resolution

Federal Court Cements Ban On California’s Latest Attempt To Outlaw Employment Arbitration

California cannot prohibit employers from requiring employees to sign arbitration agreements as a condition of employment, under a federal court order entered January 2, 2024. The permanent injunction came in a lawsuit from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce challenging a 2019 California law that effectively barred mandatory arbitration of employment disputes. The order from the U.S. District Court for the Eastern...
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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: Data and Statistics

CWC’s Round-Up of Notable 2023 State and Local Employment Law Developments

The Center for Workplace Compliance (CWC), our affiliated nonprofit membership association, has compiled a year-end digest of notable state and local employment law developments on which we reported during 2023.  The digest briefly describes the issues and links to related CWC memos that discuss the issues in more detail. If a state is not listed, that means CWC did not...
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Category: ADA

Tenth Circuit Rejects Open-Ended Leave as ADA Reasonable Accommodation

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit has ruled that a request for open-ended leave by a casino worker whose absences violated the casino’s no-fault attendance policy was not a reasonable accommodation under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). In Davis v. PHK Staffing, the Tenth Circuit upheld a federal trial court’s grant of summary judgment for the...
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Category: Data and Statistics

Latest Annual Government Survey Shows Jump in Workplace Homicides and Suicides

The government’s most recent survey of workplace fatalities shows a marked increase in both homicides and suicides in 2022 over the previous COVID-19 pandemic year. In fact, the latest available national Census of Fatal Occupational Injuries (CFOI), an annual survey conducted by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), discloses that 2022 had the most reported homicides in U.S. workplaces...
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Category: Executive Order

FAR Council Issues Final Rule Implementing 2022 Biden PLA Executive Order

The Federal Acquisition Regulatory (FAR) Council has issued a final rule directing federal agency contracting officers to insert a project labor agreement (PLA) requirement into most solicitations or prime contracts that will cost the government at least $35 million. The rule implements a 2022 Executive Order (E.O. 14063) from President Biden that essentially mandates the use of union labor on...
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Category: Agency Enforcement

OFCCP Audits, Financial Recoveries Increased Notably in FY 2023

There were notable increases in the number of audits conducted by the Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs (OFCCP) and the monetary remedies it obtained in 2023, according to an analysis of OFCCP data performed by the Center for Workplace Compliance (CWC), our affiliated nonprofit membership association. OFCCP completed 1,056 supply-and-service (i.e., non-construction) compliance evaluation audits in fiscal year (FY) 2023, a...
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Category: State and Local Law

Notable New State Workplace Laws Going Into Effect on January 1, 2024

Many state workplace laws discussed in our Interstate memos are taking effect at the beginning of the year. Therefore, we have compiled a digest of the most notable new state laws, as well as two local laws from Chicago and Seattle. Members of the Center for Workplace Compliance (CWC), our affiliated nonprofit membership association, can read more here.
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Category: DOL

DOL Finalizes Rule Reinstating Right of First Refusal Policy on SCA Contracts

The U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) has published a final rule requiring federal contractors and subcontractors on covered service contracts to offer employees employed under a predecessor contract a right of first refusal of employment on a successor contract. The rule will take effect February 12, 2024. It restores a policy implemented by the Obama Administration and reversed by the Trump Administration....

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