Hunton Employment & Labor Perspectives

On July 29, 2021, the U.S. Department of Labor filed a final rule rescinding the Trump-era “Joint Employer Status Under the Fair Labor Standards Act” rule (29 CFR part 791), which went into effect on March 16, 2020.

Scabby the Rat is a familiar sight in disputes between unions and employers. Scabby, a giant inflatable rat with red eyes, fangs, and claws, is often placed outside the places of business of employers with whom a union has a labor dispute (the “primary” employer).  Recently, the NLRB again addressed the issue of whether such union protests can be directed against a “secondary” neutral employer who does business with the primary employer but who is not party to the underlying labor dispute.

Use of employee biometric data – including fingerprints, eye scans, voiceprints, and facial scans – continues to be a popular, yet legally risky, proposition for employers. Several states and municipalities have laws that specifically govern the use of biometric data, the highest profile of which is the Illinois Biometric Information Privacy Act (BIPA).

California employers will need to reconsider the way they calculate premium payments for meal and rest break violations following a recent decision of the California Supreme Court.

HuntonAK labor and employment partner, Amber Rogers was named to Bloomberg Law’s inaugural edition of the “They’ve Got Next: The 40 Under 40” list.

HuntonAK labor and employment partner Roland Juarez was listed among the Los Angeles Business Journal’s 2021 Top Leaders of Influence: Top Litigators & Trial Lawyers. This is Roland’s third consecutive year to be included, he was selected from over 300 nominations.

The New York State Department of Labor released its anticipated airborne infectious disease standard and sample plan on July 6.  Employers have until August 5, 2021 to adopt or create a plan to comply with the standard.

On June 30, 2021, President Biden signed a joint resolution narrowly passed by Congress to repeal a Trump-era rule that would have increased the EEOC’s information-sharing requirements during the statutorily mandated conciliation process.

Over the past six months, the California Supreme Court as well as the State’s appellate courts have published a number of important decisions in the area of California labor and employment law. The California Supreme Court’s decisions published earlier this year in Donohue v. AMN Services, LLC (2021) 11 Cal.5th 58 and Vazquez v. Jan-Pro Franchising International, Inc. (2021) 10 Cal.5th 944 were previously covered in Hunton Labor & Employment perspectives. (See Link 1 & Link 2 [discussing the Ninth Circuit’s earlier 2019 decision].)

President Joe Biden signed a new executive order on July 9, called the Executive Order on Promoting Competition in the American Economy, aimed at cracking down on monopolies in Big Tech, labor and other sectors.  According to a Fact Sheet released by the White House, the Executive Order includes 72 initiatives the President wants over a dozen federal agencies to undertake for the stated purpose of promoting competition throughout the U.S. economy.