Hello Everyone!

It has been a busy Spring in the Capitol City...and looks to be even busier as 2009 marches on. Here are some important employment law related pieces of federal legislation that may be "hot" topics this year:

 E-verify – E-Verify still hasn’t been mandated for use by public employers, however, this may be changing as extended authorization for the E-Verify program was included in recent Omnibus Appropriations Bill in 2009. In addition, the Obama Administration’s budget for 2010 included $110 million in continued funding for E-Verify.

 FOREWARN Act – This Act would amend the Federal WARN Act which requires employers who have over 100 full time employees be given 60 days notice before a plant or location closing and layoff. The amendments would reduce the full time employee requirement to 25 and extend the layoff notice period to 90 days. Failure to comply with the notice requirements would make an employer liable to the employees for double the back pay for each day of the violation up to the 90 days.

 More FMLA Changes?? – Recently, the Family Fairness Act of 2009 was introduced in the House of Representatives. This Act would amend FMLA by eliminating the requirement that an employee has to have worked 1,250 hours during the 12 month prior to the leave request. The Family and Medical Leave Enhancement Act 2009, also introduced in the house would allow employees to take up to 4 hours of FMLA protected time within a 30 day period for school or community related activities.

 The DOL is growing = more inspections – The Government Accountability Office’s recent review of the Wage and Hour Division of the Labor Department did not go well. GAO staffers found that DOL employees frequently failed to respond to wage and labor law violation claims brought to their attention in a number of ways: telling callers to get a lawyer, failing to follow up on phone calls to employers, and failing to follow up on complaints at all. President Obama sent a letter to the new Labor Secretary Hilda Solis in March indicating his displeasure with the departments past failure to enforce labor laws vigorously. To remedy the situation, the Labor Department is currently hiring 250 additional investigators which will increase the staff of the wage and hour division by more then a third.