Skip to main content

Breaking: Injunction Issued to Halt Implementation of Fair Pay and Safe Workplaces Rule


Recently, Associated Builders and Contractors (and national trade associations) brought suit in Texas to challenge the implementation of the Fair Pay and Safe Workplaces rule.  This rule, which has also been referred to as the "Blacklisting Rule" would require that contractors who seek federal work to disclose recent labor law violations.  This rule arises out of Executive Order No. 13673 (issued by President Barack Obama on July 30, 2016) which was designed to achieve sweeping labor law reforms.  The Obama administration's goal with the Blacklisting Rule was to withhold government contracts from employers with a history of violations.  Opponents of the Fair Pay and Safe Workplaces rule argued that it violated contractors' First Amendment rights and would restrict open competition for federal contracts by forcing companies to disclose allegations of unadjudicated labor and employment law violations.  

Late Monday, Judge Marcia Crone from the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas, issued a nationwide injunction which halts the implementation of the Fair Pay and Safe Workplaces rule (which was set to go into effect on October 25, 2016 for employers with federal contracts of $50 million or more and next April for employers with federal contracts of $500,000.00 or more).  In Judge Crone's ruling, she held that the Associated Builders and Contractors (who brought suit originally) had "properly demonstrated immediate and ongoing injury to their members if the rule is allowed to take effect."  

However, note that the only area where the injunction was not granted was the "Paycheck Transparency" provision which would require contractors and subcontractors to provide employees with documentation of regular and overtime hours worked, pay and additions to or deductions from pay that are not currently included in employee paychecks.  The Paycheck Transparency provision will go into effect on January 1, 2017.

It goes without saying that this is quite a development.  Interesting to see how this one plays out, now that the injunction has been issued.


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

NLRB: Discussion Among Employees About Tip Pooling is Protected Concerted Activity

  This Advice Memorandum from the National Labor Relations Board’s Associate General Counsel, Jayme Sophir, addressed whether employees which discussed and complained about tip pooling at work constituted protected concerted activity. In relevant part, an employer in New York operated a chain of steakhouses.  While tip pooling was in place at these steakhouses, some of the employees objected to it on the grounds that it was not transparent and improperly divided tips among the workers.  Employees were told not to complain or talk to each other about the tip pool and were told that doing so would endanger their jobs.  Despite the employer later attempting to provide some clarity as to how the tips were being divided, rancor still existed among some employees.  At one point, the employees were told by a general manager that some employees that had been talking about the tip pool were “cleared out” and the employer would continue to do so. In the Advice Memorandum, it was noted that emplo
Post a Comment
Read more

What I’ve Been Reading This Week

A few years ago, I remember when the “Fight for $15” movement was taking off around the country.  Lo and behold, it appears that a $15/hour minimum wage is not the stopping point, which should be no surprise.  As the below article notes, New York is aggressively moving to ramp up hourly wage rates even higher.  While all the  below articles are worth a read, I called particular attention to that one. As always, below are a couple article that caught my eye this week. Disney World Workers Reject Latest Contract Offer Late last week, it was announced that workers at Disney World had rejected the most recent contract offer from the company, calling on their employer to do better.  As Brooks Barnes at The New York Times writes, the unions that represent about 32,000 workers at Disney World reported their members resoundingly rejected the 5 year contract offer which would have seen workers receive a 10% raise and retroactive increased back pay.  While Disney’s offer would have increased pa
Post a Comment
Read more

Utah Non-Compete Bill Falters in House

Last month, a non-compete bill sponsored by Representative Brian Greene (Republican from Pleasant Grove) & up for vote in the Utah House failed to make it through the Legislature.  The bill sought to ban enforcement of non-competes if they came after a worker was already employed, given no compensation (such as a bonus or promotion) for signing the non-compete, and laid off within six months.  However, by a 22 - 49 vote, the bill was resoundingly defeated after some business groups lobbied to kill the non-compete bill.  One group in particular, The Free Enterprise Utah coalition, argued that the Utah State Legislature should hold off on any changes to non compete laws in the state until a survey about non competes was done among Utah businesses.  Representative Greene had countered this claim and argued that a survey was not needed to show that the current non compete laws in the states allowed many businesses, including some small high tech companies in the state, to per
Post a Comment
Read more