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The National Labor Relations Board has issued a proposed rule addressing union recognition in the construction industry. �۽�ֱ�� plans to submit comments prior to the October 11, 2019, deadline.

On July 15, the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) officially opened the Web-based portal for the reinstated EEO-1 collection of pay and hours worked data for calendar years 2017 and 2018. The EEOC also provided a series of Frequently Asked Questions (“FAQs”) regarding the new requirements and a More Info Page to assist filers. The More Info page provides additional resources such as a sample form, an instruction booklet, a user’s guide, a fact sheet, and reference documents.

Negotiators conducting collective bargaining between January and June of this year agreed to raise construction craft workers’ wage and fringe benefits by an average of 2.8 percent or $1.65 during the first contract year, 2.7 percent or $1.65 during the second contract year, and 2.7 percent or $1.67 during the third contract year, according to the Construction Labor Research Council’s (CLRC) latest Settlements Report. While these numbers are all slightly lower than those reported last year, CLRC notes that the data should be considered preliminary for the year, as many additional settlements are likely to be added to CLRC’s database during the second half of the year.

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The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) recently updated the web-based portal for the reinstated collection of 2017 and 2018 EEO-1 Component 2 data with several resources to assist employers. Specifically, the EEOC provided a series of Frequently Asked Questions (“FAQs”) regarding the new requirements and a More Info Page. The More Info page provides additional resources such as a sample form, an instruction booklet, a user’s guide, a fact sheet, and reference documents.

On June 25, �۽�ֱ�� submitted comments to the U. S. Department of Labor’s (DOL) Wage and Hour Division (WHD) in response to its Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) revising and clarifying the responsibilities of employers and joint employers to employees in joint employer arrangements. In 2017, the DOL withdrew the previous administrations sub-regulatory guidance regarding joint employer status that did not go through the rulemaking process that includes public notice and comment.

Employers may be surprised to learn that the National Labor Relations Board (the “Board” or “NLRB”) just issued a unanimous decision invalidating an employer’s mandatory arbitration agreement that could be reasonably interpreted as preventing employees from filing charges with the Board. The June 18 Prime Healthcare decision analyzed the employer’s arbitration agreement using the relatively new Boeing Co. standard for evaluating facially neutral policies and rules that potentially interfere with employees’ protected rights, but fell on the side of the workers. The Prime Healthcare decision may require you to adjust your arbitration agreements.

The U.S. Department of Labor’s Office of Labor-Management Standards (“OLMS”) recently made technical changes to the poster that federal contractors and subcontractors are required to display under Executive Order 13496. The poster informs employees of their rights under the National Labor Relations Act (“NLRA”). The Department updated the poster to reflect a new telephone number for the National Labor Relations Board, the agency responsible for enforcing the NLRA, and to provide contact information for individuals who are deaf or hard of hearing. No other changes or updates were made at this time.

The U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) recently announce that after June 14, 2019, www.WDOL.gov will be transitioning to https://beta.SAM.gov, which will become the new website for wage determination data.

On May 21, �۽�ֱ�� submitted comments to the U. S. Department of Labor’s (DOL) Wage and Hour Division (WHD) in response to a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) updating the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) overtime regulations. In line with �۽�ֱ��’s recommendations to the WHD, this NPRM is the second step the DOL is undertaking to revisit the Obama administration overtime rule that dramatically increased the salary threshold for exempt employees and would have resulted in unintended consequences, particularly for small construction companies construction employers in lower-wage regions, and construction personnel. In contrast to the Obama rule, this new proposal would simply update the salary threshold using current wage data, projected to January 1, 2020. The result would boost the standard salary threshold for exempt employees from $455 to $679 per week (equivalent to $35,308 per year).