The U.S. Department of Labor has recently unveiled proposed revisions to Wage and Hour Division regulations regarding employee and independent contractor classification under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA). The stated intention of this change is to be more consistent with judicial precedent and practical implementation.
The proposed change was announced on October 13, 2022
Effective today, May 6, 2021, the Department of Labor’s (DOL’s) Trump-era independent contractor rule has been officially withdrawn. The Trump-era independent contractor rule, which never went into effect due to the change between presidential administrations, would have made it easier for companies to classify workers as independent contractors.
The Trump-era independent contractor rule expressly adopted and clarified the “economic realities test” for worker classification, and would have narrowed the focus of the inquiry to five distinct factors: (1) the nature and degree of the individual’s control over the work; (2) the individual’s opportunity for profit or loss; (3) the amount of skill required to perform the work; (4) the degree of permanence in the relationship between the individual and the potential employer; and (5) whether the work performed by the individual is part of an integrated unit of production. The independent contractor rule veered away from the classic application of the economic realities test applied by the courts by providing that the nature and degree of the worker’s control over the work and the worker’s opportunity for profit or loss were “core factors” that were to be given greater weight than the other factors. If both of those two “core factors” supported the same classification, there would have been a “substantial likelihood” that the classification is appropriate. Many viewed this as a substantial departure from the prior multi-factor “totality of the circumstances tests,” because if the “core factors” both pointed towards one classification, the analysis was likely to be complete and unaffected by the three remaining factors.
The Biden administration’s DOL has withdrawn the independent contractor rule for several reasons, including that:
On April 1, 2020, the US Department of Labor (DOL) issued a temporary rule providing key guidance on paid leave under the Families First Coronavirus Response Act (FFCRA). The rule clarifies that employees covered under a federal, state or local stay–at-home order may be eligible for paid FFCRA leave but only if work or telework
The US Department of Labor (DOL) issued guidance which answers a number of key questions on the new federal coronavirus paid sick leave and emergency Family and Medical Leave Act leave, including when the law takes effect, how to count employees for purposes of the 500-employee threshold, how to treat related employers and other key
On March 18, 2020, President Trump signed into law the Families First Coronavirus Response Act (FFCRA), which provides relief to families and workers facing the global coronavirus pandemic.
The FFCRA provides: (1) free diagnostic testing for coronavirus; (2) food assistance to low-income pregnant women and mothers with young children, food banks, seniors and students; (3)
Earlier this week, the U.S. Department of Labor (“DOL”) issued six advisory opinion letters on various Family and Medical Leave Act (“FMLA”) and Fair Labor Standards Act (“FLSA”) issues. From time to time, opinion letters such as these are issued to provide legal guidance to employers.
The DOL opinion letter likely to be of most interest to US companies is the one that addressed whether an employee in good health who voluntarily chooses to undergo organ donation surgery could use FMLA leave for post-operative care. See FMLA2018-2-A. The DOL opined that this would qualify as a “serious health condition” under the FMLA if it involved either “inpatient care” or “continuing treatment.” See 29 C.F.R. §§ 825.114 and 825.115.
Though the DOL opinion letter touched on medical certification as a “basic requirement” for FMLA leave, the DOL did not appear to find it significant that the employee was choosing to undergo the surgery voluntarily and “solely to improve someone else’s health.” Instead, it focused on the medical treatment that would be involved in the organ donation surgery.
The other DOL opinion letters covered a variety of topics, and set forth the following opinions:
Despite the fact that the U.S. Department of Labor’s new overtime regulations were set to go into effect on December 1st, the validity of the regulations remains unsettled. We previously reported that on November 22nd, Judge Amos Mazzant of the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Texas granted a nationwide injunction precluding
Employers who had been searching for a way to best implement the Department of Labor’s new overtime regulations (the “Final Rule”), which are set to go into effect on December 1, 2016, received an early holiday gift on Tuesday, and from one of President Obama’s appointed jurists, no less. On November 22nd, Judge Amos Mazzant
With just about 90 days to go before the U.S. Department of Labor’s final rule dramatically updating overtime regulations is scheduled to go into effect, small business owners have petitioned the DOL’s Wage and Hour Division seeking more time to prepare for and implement changes to the way they operate their businesses so that they