KMK Law Management Rights Blog

As anticipated, the Department of Labor’s (DOL) final overtime rules were issued on May 18, 2016. Effective December 1, 2016, these new regulations will impact all companies with salaried employees earning less than $47,476 annually. KMK will be offering training sessions to assist our clients in developing effective strategies to implement the new overtime rules. 

This week, the U.S. Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration (“OSHA”) released a finalized recordkeeping rule that becomes effective January 1, 2017.  Under the final rule, certain employers are required to electronically submit data regarding work-related injuries and illnesses.  Impacted employers are already required to collect and record this data under OSHA regulations.  However, now, this employer injury and illness data will be public.  Once OSHA removes personal identifying information of employees, the data will be posted on OSHA’s website.

The Second Circuit’s decision to reinstate the NFL’s four game suspension of Tom Brady has been in the news this week. To those of us who handle arbitration on a regular basis, it came as no surprise. However, employers who arbitrate cases pursuant to a collective bargaining agreement, or who have or are considering arbitration programs, should not be overly concerned.   

One of the most common requests that I receive as an employment attorney is to review severance offers.  I’ve had these kinds of requests from friends, relatives, acquaintances and (on rare occasions) clients and I seldom turn them down. I have probably handled hundreds of reductions in force for various corporate clients so I like to see how others handle them.  In the past month, I have reviewed two severances packages and both failed to follow the requirements of the Older Workers’ Benefit Protection Act (“OWBPA”).  I was not at all surprised.  If I had to guess, I would say that over 50% of the severance offers I’ve reviewed over the years are not in compliance with the OWBPA.     

On December 24, 2015, the NLRB ruled that an employer’s policy prohibiting employees from recording images or verbal exchanges in the workplace was unlawful.