According to an article in HR Morning, managers who don’t follow Family and Medical Leave Act rules can be held personally liable.
That’s the message out of a recent appeals court ruling in Pennsylvania, in which a judge ruled that a supervisor in the Lawrence County Probation Department may be subject to individual liability under the FMLA.
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The White House claims the cap on executive salaries that may be charged to government contracts “has soared to unreasonable heights.” Indeed, the benchmark has risen from $250,000 in 1995 (the first year the cap was effective) to just shy of $694,000 in 2010. OMB did not update the benchmark in 2011 even though it’s a requirement of the OFPP Act (41 U.S.C. 435) which imposed the cap.
It actually took significant research to discover that the current cap is actually $693,951. Apparently, $694,000 is just so much more impressive in print.
As originally enacted, the law imposed the cap only on the top five contractor executives. Over time, this has been interpreted to mean the top five executives in each business unit of a multi-segment contractor. This introduced an interesting paradox in very large corporations where the compensation of the number six person (and others) might significantly exceed the cap, but be completely allowable – or at least not capped by law.
Fiscal 2012 saw a number of proposed changes to this provision including one by the White House as part of the President’s deficit reduction proposal to drop the cap to $200,000. This is the amount earned by the most senior federal executives (cabinet secretaries). That proposal never went anywhere, but the Senate included a provision in the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) to drop the cap to $400,000, an amount equal to the President’s salary. The House included a provision in its version of the NDAA that left the current benchmark in place, but extended it to all contractor employees instead of just the top five.
In the end, the NDAA bill the President signed on December 31st included the House language. So, the cap remains at the benchmark set each year by OMB, but is now effective for all contractor employees.
And, the saga is not over yet. Senior Government officials are concerned the overdue OMB update of the benchmark may push it over $750,000 and the White House is once again calling for a dramatically lower cap. On January 31st, the acting head of the Office of Federal Procurement Policy (OFPP) posted an entry to the OMB Blog entitled “Ending the Overpayment of Federal Contractor Executives.” In it he called the current executive compensation benchmark “far in excess of what can be justified” and called on Congress to “abolish the outdated statutory formula” and tie the cap to the top salary of the Government executive pay schedule – $200,000.
Legislators from Senator Charles Grassley (R-IO) to Senator Barbara Boxer (D-CA) have echoed this call and in the current Congressional environment, it could happen!
As they say in the advertising business, “Watch this space.”
Recently, TSA Administrator John Pistole announced that he would essentially stop additional airports from being able to use private screeners under the "Screening Partnership Program." While not many airports (17) are involved in the program, and only a handful of security/screening companies are involved, support for the new policy from influential Democratic members of Congress and public unions, demonstrated a clear anti-private security sentiments that are applicable to all cases where the federal government is using private security. In a blatantly false statement, AFGE president John Gage said the new policy stopping further airports from using private screeners means "(t)he nation is secure in the sense that the safety of our skies will not be left in the hands of the lowest-bidder contractor, as it was before 9/11." Continue Reading…
By June of this year, DoL intends to publish a proposed rule to expand the scope of employer-consultant reporting required under Section 203 of the Labor-Management Reporting and Disclosure Act (LMRDA). Under the LMRDA, an employer must report any agreement or arrangement with a third-party consultant to persuade employees regarding their collective bargaining rights, or to gather certain information about employee activities or a labor organization in connection with a labor dispute. The labor relations consultant must also report information about such an agreement or arrangement. Continue Reading…
The Obama administration intensified a crackdown on employers of illegal immigrants, notifying another 1,000 companies in all 50 states Wednesday the government plans to inspect their hiring records.
Businesses across the U.S. that rely on low-skilled labor are working to stave off Immigration and Customs Enforcement audits, which can lead to the loss of large numbers of employees, reduced productivity and legal expenses. Continue Reading…
The U.S. Dept. of Labor has issued an ALL AGENCY MEMORANDUM NUMBER 210 dated June 10, 2011 changing the current Service Contract Act (SCA) Health and Welfare Fringe Benefit. In accordance with 29 C.F.R. Section 4.52, the prevailing health and welfare fringe benefits issued under the McNamara-O’Hara Service Contract Act will be increased on June 17, 2011. Effective June 17, 2011, the new SCA health and welfare benefit will be $ 3.59 per hour and will be posted on the Wage Determination Online and Wage and Hour Division websites. Continue Reading…
In 2009, the Obama Administration drafted memos that envisioned changing federal acquisition policy to require positive weight in the federal acquisition source selection process be given to bidders for their labor standards for their workforce. Dubbed the "High Road Contracting Policy", each bidder on a federal contract would be assigned a scored based on labor related criteria that would include whether the bidder pays a livable wage, provides "quality, affordable health insurance," an employer-funded retirement plan and paid sick leave. Other factors would include the company’s record in complying with tax and labor laws. In additions, the labor and employment information would also be systematically collected from all contractors and be made available through a public database. Of most significance, a bidder’s "score" would be based not only on the treatment of its employees working on the government contract but to all company staffers.
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While the NLRA gives the NLRB rulemaking authority, for 75 years it has been rarely exercised. However, in December 2010, the 3-1 Dem majority (Dems last had majority status is 2001) put out a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking requiring employers, subject to the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) to post notices informing their employees of their rights as employees under the NLRA. While this posting requirement on its face does not seem a big deal there are some specific and general concerns with the proposed rule. Specifically, in addition to requiring physical posting of paper notices, the rule also requires that notices be "distributed electronically, such as by email, posting on an intranet or an internet site, and/or other electronic means, if the employer customarily communicates with its employees by such means." This could be more problematic for employers. Furthermore, the NLRB has proposed that failure to post the notice would be an unfair labor practice; that a failure to post the notice could be used as evidence of discrimination; and that failure to post would result in tolling the 6-month statute of limitations period for violations of the NLRA.
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The U.S. Treasury has announced that it is phasing out the mailing of Social Security checks to retirees. Beginning May 1, anyone newly applying for Social Security, Veterans Affairs, or other federal benefits will need to choose an electronic payment method. Paper checks will no longer be an option. People currently receiving their federal benefits by paper check must switch to direct deposit by March 1, 2013.
Rosie Rios, the Treasurer of the United States, noted that it costs the federal government 92¢ more to issue a payment by paper check than by direct deposit. That cost is significant, since more than 18 million baby boomers are expected to reach retirement age during the next five years.
In December 2010, the Treasury Department published a final rule to gradually eliminate paper checks for federal benefit payments [Financial Management Service Press Release, 4/26/11].
Last year, the NLRB took up a case (Lamons Gaskets) that it said it would it use to reconsider (and potentially overrule) the 2007 Dana Corp decision which established decertification election parameters. In Dana, the NLRB attempted to harmonize voluntary recognition arrangements made by employers and unions with the need to protect employees’ fundamental right of free choice in choosing (or not choosing) a collective bargaining representative. Under Dana an employer who voluntarily recognizes a union must his notify employees in a posting that voluntary recognition had been granted. After that, for a limited time (45 days following posting), the NLRB would accept a request from employees (at least 30 percent of the unit) to hold an election on the employer recognition of the union (or to join a rival union). Since 2007, 85 petitions have been filed, resulting in the conducting of 54 elections. In 15 of those elections (approximately 28 percent) employees rejected the recognized union. In two of those elections, employees voted to replace the recognized union with a rival.
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