Alerts

Seventy-five years after it was enacted, the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) continues to surprise, and to remind us that it’s not how much you pay, but how, that really matters.  On February 22, 2023, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Helix Energy Solutions v. Michael Hewitt (No. 21-984) that even a very highly compensated individual may be entitled to ove...

Non-compete agreements – provisions in employment contracts whereby an employee agrees not to accept future employment with a competitor, disclose trade secrets, or poach customers – have been widely used for decades.  But on January 5, 2023, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) issued a notice of proposed rulemaking (NPRM) that could not just limit, but ba...

After a delay of approximately 10 months the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit has slightly narrowed, but affirmed, a preliminary injunction imposed by the District Court against enforcement of President Biden’s Federal contractor vaccine mandate. This is a major victory for our client, Associated Builders and Contractors (ABC), a nationwide ...

In a 6-to-3 decision published January 13, 2022 the U.S. Supreme Court has stayed implementation of an Emergency Temporary Standard (ETS) proposed by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) that would have required the employers of nearly half of all workers in the United States either to require all of their employees to be vaccinated ag...

On September 9, 2021, President Biden issued an executive order (EO) mandating that Federal contractors and large employers require their employees to be vaccinated against COVID-19. Touted as a bold public health initiative, the EO is unprecedented: never before has the government issued a  mandate requiring employees to submit to a vaccination or weekly...

The March 2020 CARES Act allows employers to reduce their quarterly federal employment tax deposit obligations in certain situations. For example, if an employer is entitled to a credit of $5,000 for (a) qualified sick leave wages, (b) certain related health plan expenses, and (c) the employer’s share of Medicare tax on the leave wages, and if the employe...

The $900 billion pandemic relief that passed Congress in December was a compromise measure aimed at improving economic recovery.  Some of its most important features are as follows:

Two virus relief packages have passed Congress and been implemented, each running slightly in excess of $1 trillion.  They provided a $600.00 per week federal supplement to state unemployment benefits, so generous that a majority of workers on unemployment received more money than if they were working.  That federal supplement expired at the end...

In a 6-3 ruling on June 16, 2020, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the federal civil rights laws protect workers on the basis of their sexual orientation or gender identity.  Bostock v. Clayton County.  The much-publicized issue and ruling comes as a surprise to many and serves as a prime example that changes in social mores among the populatio...

Atlanta Senior Principal Larry Stine, nationally recognized expert on occupational safety and health law, was extensively quoted in an article published by Bloomberg Law News on June 3, 2020.  Contrary to some reports the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) has ramped up its inspections of many employers, especially meat and poultry proce...

March 17, 2020 Update: The House has passed, and the President has indicated his support for, the Families First Coronavirus Response Act.  The Senate is to consider this bill on March 17, 2020. Employers are primarily impacted by the paid sick leave, expanded FMLA leave, and tax credit.