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by Traycee Ellen Klein and Erin Carney D’Angelo On Monday, December 13, New York Governor David Patterson signed the Wage Theft Prevention Act (WTPA). According to the governor’s press release, the new law: enacts more stringent and transparent record-keeping and employee notification requirements; increases the amount of wages that can be recovered as damages in […]
Yesterday, the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia held that the individual health insurance mandate provision found in the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA), the comprehensive health care reform legislation that President Barack Obama signed into law in March 2010, is unconstitutional. The individual mandate would require most individuals to […]
It may soon be easier for employees to find private legal representation after the U.S. Department of Labor’s (DOL) Wage and Hour Division (WHD) declines to pursue their Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) or Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) claims. This is thanks to a new collaboration between the WHD and the American Bar […]
The Occupational Safety and Health Administration’s (OSHA) agenda to increase enforcement, which includes items such as ergonomics, noise standards, and an injury and illness prevention program, seems destined to run into resistance from the new Republican majority in the U.S. House of Representatives. It’s fairly clear that changes to the Occupational Safety and Health Act […]
There’s good news and bad news to be found in the results of HRHero.com’s 2011 Compensation Survey. The good news is that last year 32 percent of respondents said they were going to have a wage freeze in 2010, but this year only 21 percent say they are planning to have a wage freeze in the […]
Today, the U.S. Supreme Court agreed to review what has been called the largest employment class action in U.S. history — Wal-Mart Stores v. Dukes. The class of plaintiffs is estimated to include approximately 1.5 million former and current female Wal-Mart employees seeking monetary relief that could amount to billions of dollars in back pay. […]
Three blogs written by members of the Employers Counsel Network have been nominated for the American Bar Association Journal’s annual Blawg 100 competition. For the fourth year in a row, That’s What She Said, a blog written by attorneys at Ford & Harrison LLP, has been selected as one of the 100 best law blogs […]
After years of budget constraints left the thinly staffed agency struggling under a hefty workload, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) has bounced back, causing headaches for many employers. During the 2010 fiscal year, which ended September 30, the EEOC received a record number of charges — nearly 100,000, the most in the agency’s 45-year […]
The much-hyped Paycheck Fairness Act has been shut down and is unlikely to be revived any time soon. The PFA (S. 182; H.R. 11) was initially introduced in 2008 as a companion to the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act. The bill, which passed in the U.S. House of Representatives in January 2009, needed 60 votes […]
By Dinita L. James, Gonzalez Law, LLC By a slim margin, Arizona has become the 15th state in the nation to allow the use of marijuana for medical purposes. Proposition 203, or the Arizona Medical Marijuana Act, trailed by about 6,000 votes in early election night returns. Yet, after 10 days of counting early voter […]