In August of 2021, the Office of the Inspector General (OIG) of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) submitted a final report to Ur M. Jaddou, the Director of the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), entitled USCIS Needs to Improve Its Electronic Employment Eligibility Verification Process. The report found that the E-Verify system used by the USCIS does not have the capacity to accurately Read More

In January 2021, the “Raise the Wage Act of 2021” was introduced in Congress. It aims to increase the federal minimum wage from $7.25 an hour to $15 an hour by 2025. It would be the first increase in twelve years, the longest such period since 1938. Industry organizations have expressed concern over potential confusion the wage increase could cause, while worker advocates urged legislators to immediately pass the Read More

After Governor Phil Murphy signed into law an array of legislation in 2020, designed to identify and penalize New Jersey business enterprises for the misclassification of employees as independent contractors, New Jersey passed four new laws in the summer of 2021 to lend support to these earlier efforts to reduce worker misclassification. Misclassification has been a "growing problem" in New Jersey, Sen. Fred Madden, Read More

As the delta variant of the COVID-19 virus rages on,, many business and educational institutions in the United States are requiring their employees and students, respectively, to get a COVID-19 vaccine. However, some individuals who resist reasonable efforts to thwart the continued spread of the virus may also be raising reasonably valid constitutional issues and concerns.  In early August in Fairfax, Virginia, a Read More

Late this summer, The Department of Labor (DOL) announced that it would establish a new office to help states modernize their unemployment insurance (UI) systems. The DOL created the Office of Unemployment Insurance Modernization (OUIM), to provide oversight for the management of $2 billion allocated to the DOL for the primary purpose of improving and revising state UI systems with significant reforms. This Read More

The United Mine Workers of America (UMWA) has filed suit against Cornerstone Labor Services for failure to give adequate notice of a mass layoff at its West Virginia Coal Mountain Mine in violation of the federal Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act (WARN), which requires employers to give 60 days’ advance notice of a mass layoff or plant closing. The UMWA filed the suit on behalf of Local Union 8783, Read More

On July 23, 2021, the U.S. Women’s National Soccer Team (USWNT) filed an appeal with the Ninth Circuit to revive their unequal pay claim against the U.S. Soccer Federation (USSF) that was dismissed by a California federal judge in May 2020. The case - Alex Morgan, et al v. United States Soccer Federation - was brought under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act and the Equal Pay Act. The women soccer players claimed Read More

Parties in a class action lawsuit against Lumber Liquidators have asked a New York court to approve a settlement deal of approximately $7 million to resolve any state and federal wage claims by workers who allege the flooring retailer denied them overtime pay by misclassifying them as exempt. In Ashleigh Mason et al. v. Lumber Liquidators, a group of former and current Lumber Liquidators store managers and store Read More

An Arkansas healthcare worker has sued a hospital for withdrawing its employment offer after learning that the prospective employee uses medical marijuana, which is legal in Arkansas.  In Balance Reed v. Northwest Arkansas Hospitals LLC, plaintiff Reed is seeking class action status against Northwest Arkansas Hospitals, LLC (NWAH), which operates several hospitals in the state, including Northwest Medical Read More

The Georgia Court of Appeals has ruled that an employee injured in a slip-and-fall accident on the way to her employer’s parking lot during her lunch break qualifies for Georgia workers’ compensation benefits. The decision reverses the court’s prior rulings due to a June 2020 Georgia Supreme Court holding that injuries suffered during lunch or bathroom breaks are considered to have occurred in the course of Read More