Walsh’s DOL Expected to Chart More Employee-Friendly Course
With the confirmation of Marty Walsh as the new secretary of the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL), employers shouldn’t be surprised to see a more proemployee climate on the federal level.
Tag: U.S. Senate
Senate releases highly anticipated healthcare bill
Update: On June 27, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell announced that a vote on the Senate bill will be delayed until after the July 4th recess. Following the May passage in the House of the American Health Care Act (AHCA), the Senate has now released the text of its own draft ACA reform bill. Dubbed […]
Controversial EEOC official reconfirmed as general counsel
P. David Lopez, general counsel of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), won confirmation for another four-year term on a 53-43 Senate vote on December 3. The Senate also voted 93-2 to confirm Charlotte Burrows to a seat on the commission. Lopez became the agency’s general counsel in April 2010. Before taking the general counsel […]
Senate vote deals blow to $10.10 minimum wage effort
The campaign to raise the federal minimum wage to $10.10 an hour fell a step backward in a Senate vote on April 30—a vote that brought cheers from business interests concerned that the increase would be too onerous on employers and jeers from labor groups that claim the current $7.25 minimum is inadequate. Sixty votes […]
Senate vote puts NLRB at full strength
The U.S. Senate’s July 30 vote to confirm nominees for all five seats of the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) means the Board will have a full slate of confirmed members for the first time in more than a decade. Republicans Harry I. Johnson III and Philip A. Miscimarra and Democrats Kent Hirozawa and Nancy […]
NLRB nominees face opposition during Senate committee hearing
On May 16, President Barack Obama’s nominees to the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) went before the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, and the two nominees who were selected as recess appointees in 2012 failed to impress the committee’s ranking member, Senator Lamar Alexander. Alexander (R-Tennessee) said he would oppose the nominations of […]
Senate Votes Down Health Care Reform Repeal Legislation
On Wednesday, February 2, the U.S. Senate voted 51-47 against a largely symbolic amendment that would repeal the health care reform legislation enacted last year. (The amendment was to an unrelated Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) funding bill.) Senate Republicans unanimously backed the amendment, which would have repealed the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA), […]
Senate Passes Another COBRA Subsidy Extension Bill
Last week, the U.S. Senate passed legislation that would further extend the federal COBRA subsidy created by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009. The American Workers, State, and Business Relief Act of 2010 (H.R. 4213), which passed the Senate by a 62-36 vote, would extend the subsidy to individuals who were involuntarily terminated […]
Senate Health Care Reform Bill’s Impact on Employers
After weeks of negotiating, U.S. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nevada) finally unveiled a highly anticipated health care reform bill Wednesday night called the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. The 2,074-page bill is a combination of two different health care reform bills approved by Senate committees earlier this year. Reid revealed the Senate bill […]
Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act passed
Update: U.S. Senate has passed the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act and it has been sent to President Barack Obama. He is scheduled to sign the bill into law on Jan. 29, 2009. In one of its first major employment law actions of the year, the U.S. House of Representatives has passed legislation that will […]