From monthly archives: February 2016
We are pleased to present below all posts archived in 'February 2016'. If you still can't find what you are looking for, try using the search box.
On Feb. 17, ABC sent a letter to the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Appropriations Subcommittee on Health and Human Services, Education, and Related Agencies Chairman Tom Cole (R-Okla.) and Ranking Member Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.) expressing concern over several regulations issued by the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) and the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB).
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On Jan. 20, the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL), Wage and Hour Division Administrator David Weil released a detailed Administrator’s Interpretation (AI) and related guidance on the definition of joint employment under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) and the Migrant and Seasonal Agricultural Worker Protection Act (MSPA). The new DOL guidance comes on the heels of recent, controversial expansion of the joint employer definition by the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA). According to the new DOL guidance, joint employment occurs “when an employee is employed by two (or more) employers such that the employers are responsible, both individually and jointly, to the employee for compliance with a statute.” In keeping with this broad definition, the AI provides multifactor tests to assist with the identification of horizontal and vertical joint employment, its two most common forms. The AI also gives examples of several industries, including construction, in which joint employment is likely to arise (e.g., workers who work for a sub-contractor and possibly a general contractor).
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On Feb. 12, the West Virginia legislature voted 18-16 to override Gov. Earl Ray Tomblin’s vetoes of a prevailing wage repeal bill and the West Virginia Workplace Freedom Act, making West Virginia the 26th Right to Work state in the country and the fourth state to pass Right to Work since 2012.
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Last week, the New Hampshire House rejected a bill (House Bill 1641) that would have required prevailing wage be paid on all state construction projects. Citing a union-backed study, proponents of the bill argued the legislation would create jobs, spur economic activity, and raise workers’ wages without increasing the cost of projects. Opponents rejected those assertions and insisted the state would pay more for construction projects under the provisions of the bill.
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The New York Independent Budget Office (IBO) has released a revised report on the impact prevailing wage requirements would have on affordable housing projects built with the 421a property tax break. The 421a tax credit had been the subject of extensive negotiations in the past months. In Jan. 2016, the parties involved announced they could not reach a compromise, killing the tax credit and jeopardizing Mayor de Blasio’s plans for 80,000 affordable housing units for New York City residents. The agency had initially estimated that prevailing wage requirements would add $2.8 billion to the initiative’s total, but the agency says that figure was low as a result of data errors. After receiving additional information from the Department of Housing Preservation and Development, IBO now estimates prevailing wage requirements would cost the city an additional $4.2 billion, increasing affordable housing construction costs by 23 percent or $80,000 per unit
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In its Jan. 29 decision in Guardsmark, LLC, the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) extended its restriction on captive-audience meetings in the run up to a mail ballot union election by an additional 24 hours. Captive-audience meetings occur when an employer holds a group campaign meeting with employee voters during work hours to oppose union representation. The NLRB prohibits these meetings in the 24 hours leading up to the “scheduled time for conducting” a manual election; however, the NLRB had not imposed a similar preliminary ban in mail ballot elections until the Guardsmark decision.
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Learn how to contractually effectuate Integrated Project Delivery (IPD) and lean tools in a free webinar from ABC business partner ConsensusDocs titled The State of the Art in IPD Contracting: The New ConsensusDocs 300 and How to Contract for IPD & Lean. Contracts that match your intentions of actually encouraging collaboration and communication are more likely to achieve success. Much has been learned and refined during the past five years, and ConsensusDocs just released an entirely updated standard IPD agreement and new IPD Joining Agreement. You will hear from some of the lead drafters of the new ConsensusDocs 300 IPD Agreement and 396 Joining agreement. The webinar will be held Feb. 24, 2016, 3:30-5:00 p.m. EST.
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On Feb. 4, the West Virginia Legislature sent two important bills to the governor’s desk. The House of Delegates passed ABC-supported right-to work legislation, the “Workplace Freedom Act” (SB 1) by a vote of 54-46, while the state Senate approved legislation repealing the state’s prevailing wage law along party lines. The measures were intensely debated in both chambers in the weeks leading up to the votes. West Virginia’s prevailing wage law was mired in controversy following the passage of a reform bill in 2015 and ABC’s West Virginia Chapter has been a vocal supporter of repealing the state’s prevailing wage.
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ABC has added Southern California Chapter member Christopher White of Tutton Insurance Services, Inc. to the Beam Club Hall of Fame level.
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On Jan. 29, 2016, the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) announced a proposed rule expanding the data that is collected from certain employers on the Employer Information Report (EEO-1). Currently, certain federal contractors with 50-99 employees and private employers with more than 100 employees must report annually the number of individuals they employ by job category and race, ethnicity, and sex on the EEO-1. Under the proposed rule federal contractors and private employers with 100 or more employees would have to report pay data and hours worked on the EEO-1 in addition to the current reporting requirements, beginning on Sept. 30, 2017. Employers would report this information using 12 “pay bands” determined by the EEOC.
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