Labor & Employment Law Update

On December 17, 2021, in a 2-1 decision, the 6^th Circuit Court of Appeals dissolved the stay of OSHA’s Emergency Temporary Standard (ETS) previously ordered by the 5^th Circuit Court of Appeals. Therefore, OSHA’s ETS mandating workplace vaccination and testing on all private employers with 100 or more employees is back on. While the 6^th Circuit did not address timing issues, the day after the decision was released, OSHA announced that it will not issue citations for noncompliance with any requirements of the ETS before January 10, 2022 and will not issue citations for ...

In the ongoing saga of the federal government’s attempts to impose vaccine mandates on certain sectors, on Wednesday, December 15, the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit concluded that the nationwide injunction issued by a Louisiana District Court was overbroad and could only apply to the 14 states that were plaintiffs in the lawsuit. The court stayed the injunction for the 26 states that were not parties to the lawsuit before it or covered by the 10-state injunction issued by the Eastern District of Missouri on November 29. Therefore, the CMS vaccine ...

If you have frequented the Amundsen Davis Labor & Employment Blog, you may recall that we previously reported on one of the very first actions taken by Governor Pritzker immediately following his inauguration in January 2019. Gov. Pritzker signed into law additional amendments to the Illinois Prevailing Wage Act (IPWA). Amongst the changes made to one of the most onerous prevailing wage laws in the United States, was a new mandate that required all contractors to submit their monthly certified transcript of payroll via the Illinois Department of Labor’s (IDOL) electronic ...

In September President Biden’s Executive Order 14042 was blessed by the Safer Federal Workforce Task Force requiring certain federal contractors to have all of their contract and related workers vaccinated against COVID-19 by the new deadline date of January 4, 2022 (it was previously set for December 8, 2021 but with the OSHA and CMS mandates, the federal contractors’ date was extended). Just like President Biden’s Orders to get both health care workers and employees who work for companies with 100 or more employees vaccinated, the federal contractor vaccination ...

On Tuesday, November 30, Louisiana federal district Judge Doughty issued a nationwide injunction against implementation of Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services’ (CMS) vaccine mandate for health care workers. Judge Doughty’s decision was issued just a day after Missouri federal district Judge Schelp issued a preliminary injunction against the mandate in 10 states. Unlike the Missouri decision, the Louisiana court issued a nationwide injunction due to that court’s conclusion that there was a need for uniformity and protection of unvaccinated health care ...

With the help of the US Department of Labor (DOL), the Biden Administration made good on its promise to increase the minimum wage for workers who work on new or updated federal contracts (including extended, renewed, or exercise of an option on an existing contract). The President’s full Executive Order may be found on the White House website.

This was carried out by the DOL on November 22, 2021 with its Final Rule requiring that such workers’ minimum pay will now be $15.00 an hour starting January 30, 2022. Keep in mind if your local or state minimum wage is more, you have to pay the ...

In the past several months there has been a flurry of Executive Orders and other legally binding rules regarding vaccine mandates. Standing first and above the rest are the Executive Order by the Biden Administration mandating federal contractors have a vaccinated workforce without the option for testing (we previously blogged on this topic on September 13, 2021 and on September 27, 2021), and the imminent Emergency Temporary Standard (ETS) to be issued by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA). 

In the wake of those federal mandates many states have ...

In September, the Biden Administration directed OSHA to issue an Emergency Temporary Standard (“ETS”) requiring employers with one hundred or more employees to ensure their employees are either fully vaccinated or tested for COVID-19 on a weekly basis.  That promised ETS was published on November 5, 2021, and linked here are OSHA’s summary of the ETS and the FAQ’s relating to the ETS.   

One week later, on November 12, 2021, the 5^th Circuit Court of Appeals issuing a scathing opinion staying the enforcement of the ETS.  In the week that followed, legal challenges were ...

In December 2018, I got an unpleasant surprise: My first – and only – H-1B petition denial in my over 20+ years of practicing immigration law.

The petition was on behalf of an operations research analyst. I had done the same petition for other operations research analysts at this company. USCIS had approved them all, some all the way to green cards.

In this case I prepped the client, submitted a thorough petition, and responded to all requests for evidence. Unfortunately, this unpleasant surprise was not a shock. USCIS’s scrutiny had intensified and as many thought it was ...

Today the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) released its interim final rule requiring all employees and certain suppliers of most Medicare and Medicaid certified providers to be fully vaccinated against COVID-19 unless they receive an exemption due to a disability, medical condition or sincerely held religious belief (the “Rule”) (the text of the regulations starts on page 171 of the CMS publication). The Rule is effective upon official publication, which is targeted as November 5.

Covered Health Care Entities

The Rule applies to the following types of CMS ...