A University of Idaho professor and former national defense analyst continued her fight against members of the United States Navy after they claimed sovereign immunity in a lawsuit that she filed in Maryland District Court in May 2020. Lilian Alessa sued five individuals, including Todd Boone and Edward Westfall, for harassment and retaliation. Alessa claimed that members of the Navy engaged in sexist conduct and Read More

Walgreens is the latest retail giant to raise its minimum wage for workers,increasing its starting wage to $15 an hour. Walgreens Boots Alliance Inc. joins several retailers in trying to retain and lure more workers with larger wages. Prior to Walgreens' announcement, chief competitor CVS Health announced it would raise its minimum hourly starting wage to $15 in July of 2022. The pandemic has caused a national labor Read More

As the highly contagious Delta variant of the coronavirus rapidly spreads on a global scale, many international and U.S. business enterprises are reevaluating their vaccination and mask policies. One company that has decided to delay moving forward currently is internet giant Google, which postponed the date when its employees must return to the office until after January 10, 2022. Google was also one of the first Read More

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