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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…

Just this week, the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (the EEOC) issued a guidance in Q&A form on the newly-timely question of whether or when employers may require employees to receive one of the new COVID vaccinations from Pfizer or Moderna.  The nine Q&As dealt with the implications of the Americans with Disabilities Act, Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and “GINA,” the Genetic Information Non-Discrimination Act. The nine were tacked on to the end of a…

In August and September, the Department of Labor provided some guidance for parents on when they can take  sick leave or family leave under the FFCRA, a law passed after the COVID-19 pandemic broke out, to look after a child who is staying home from school. The FFCRA provides both sick leave and family when an employee is unable to work “due to a need to care for his or her son or daughter whose school, place of care, or child…

Earlier in September, the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (better known to lazy people as the “EEOC”) issued new Q&As to supplement the Q&As it has been issuing from time to time since March. As for some takeaways from the new Q&As, employers: (1) May administer tests for the presence of the COVID-19 virus (but not antibody tests!) to employees when evaluating their initial or continued presence in the workplace. (2) May ask ALL employees physically entering the workplace if…

The Department of Labor recently revised some of its temporary regulations on the sick leave and family leave provisions of the FFCRA, a COVID-19 relief bill passed in March, in response to an early August decision by a federal judge in New York disallowing several provisions of the regulations. According to the Labor Department, the revisions: (1) reaffirmed the requirement that employees may take leave only if work is available to them, (2) reaffirmed the requirement that employees have their employer’s…

Today the Department of Labor’s new proposed rule on determining whether a worker is an employee or an independent contractor was published in the official Federal Register, triggering a 30-day public comment period that will last until October 26, 2020. The DoL says the rule adopts an “economic reality” test to determine whether a worker is an employee or an independent contractor, and, instead of identifying a list of factors as in the past, it identifies two “core” factors and…

On Monday, Bexar County’s Judge Nelson Wolff once again extended his COVID-19 executive order, this time all the way to October 28th. For employers in San Antonio and Bexar County, the most notable provision was one extending the requirement that commercial entities providing services directly to the public have a health and safety policy that makes employees and visitors wear face coverings when it is not feasible to maintain six feet of social distancing. The executive order specifically cited provisions…

Today, July 20th, the U.S. Department of Labor issued three new guidance documents on COVID-19 issues important to employers. The first guidance is a Q&A on COVID-19 and wage and hour issues under the Fair Labor Standards Act (the FLSA).  This one poses and answers 19 questions, such as what are an employer’s obligations to an employee under a government-imposed quarantine, does OSHA apply to a home office, does an employer have to pay hazard pay under the FLSA, and…

In recent weeks, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) have provided guidance for employers contemplating testing employees in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic. There are two tests for employers to consider; one is a “viral test,” to determine if someone has an active case of COVID-19.  The other is an “antibody test,” to detect past infection with SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes the COVID-19 disease. The EEOC has provided guidance about…