Insights Search

When Texas governor Greg Abbott issued an executive order on October 11th stating that no entity in Texas could compel receipt of a COVID-19 vaccination by “any individual, including an employee or a consumer” who objects for any reason of “personal conscience, based on a religious belief, or for medical reasons, including prior recovery from COVID-19,” he set the stage for a potential conflict with pre-existing executive orders issued by President Biden.

On September 9, 2021, the White House announced a series of actions intended to reduce the number of Americans who have not been vaccinated against COVID-19.

At the end of July, the Biden administration’s Department of Labor (“DOL”) issued a final rule, effective September 28, 2021, that will rescind the Trump administration’s “Joint Employer Status under the Fair Labor Standards Act” rule, first published in January 2020.

The ‘gig’ economy has been the subject of much commentary in recent times, particularly with regard to the legal status of its workers.

With Uber being the poster child of the gig economy, last week’s decision by the UK Supreme Court inevitably made waves when it dismissed the appeal in Uber v. Aslam and upheld an employment tribunal’s decision that Uber drivers are “workers.”  Here’s a quick breakdown of what it all means and how significant it is.

The Trump administration’s Department of Labor, Wage and Hour Division (the “WHD”) published its final independent contractor rule on January 7, 2021, with a related effective date of March 8.

President-elect Joe Biden has laid out a range of employment-related initiatives, including goals that could significantly impact labor law, immigration, government contracting, employee safety, wage and hour, and other matters that affect the workplace.

The ramifications of the US elections will continue to play out over the coming weeks and months, but the passage of Proposition 22 in California is a clear electoral consequence in the field of employment law.

On September 22, 2020, the Department of Labor (“DOL”) released its long anticipated rule for evaluating independent contractor status under the Fair Labor Standards Act (“FLSA”), which provides a simpler framework for how businesses can lawfully classify workers as independent contractors rather than employees.

Earlier in 2020, we discussed the Department of Labor’s (“DOL”) four-factor test for determining whether an entity could be considered a “joint employer” of an individual even if it is not the entity that payrolls that individual.

In this final installment of our three-part series around questions for companies to consider during and after the COVID-19 pandemic, we will focus on the increased usage of outside service providers and on issues specific to reopening.