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President Elect Joe Biden has today named Boston mayor Marty Walsh to be his new Secretary of Labor, replacing Eugene Scalia. According to Bloomberg Law, Mayor Walsh was a Massachusetts state representative for 17 years and was the head of the Boston Building & Construction Trades Council. Walsh has significant union support, and it may be surmised the Department of Labor will be much more employee- and union-friendly than under Secretary Scalia.  That would not be hard. Walsh is of…

On December 31st, the mandatory coronavirus sick leave and family leave passed by Congress last March in the FFCRA expired.  The two kinds of leave – you remember them, right? – were not extended by the big coronavirus relief package passed by Congress December 21st and signed by the President on the 27th. Incidentally, the relief package was dubbed, unusually unimaginatively, the “Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2021.” On December 31st, the Department of Labor noted the expiration of the leave requirements, and…

Employers thinking about requiring employees to be vaccinated against COVID-19 should know that, as pointed out recently by Bloomberg Law, potential recipients of the Pfizer vaccine are told in a fact sheet that it is their choice to receive or not receive the vaccine.  Further, a fact sheet for health care providers who are to administer the vaccine informs them that they must communicate to recipients the they have the option to accept or refuse the vaccine. I do not…