On January 29th, the President signed the USMCA free-trade agreement, sometimes known as NAFTA 2.0, which contains an extensive labor component. The original NAFTA agreement was followed by a labor side agreement. The USMCA treaty has now been ratified by Mexico and the United States, but will not go into effect until after it is ratified by Canada. Stay tuned for more on that!
The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services has announced that employers in the United States may start using the latest I-9 form to verify the identity and employment authorization of individuals hired for employment in the U.S. The latest form is dated 10/21/19. Employers may use the latest form or the form dated 07/17/17 through April 30, 2020, but starting onMay 1st they must use the latest form. There are fillable and paper versions available at uscis.gov. While you’re at it,…
On January 2nd, the City of San Antonio and private groups defending the City’s Sick and Safe Leave Ordinance appealed an order halting the ordinance to the 4th Court of Appeals in San Antonio. The order granting a motion by business groups for a temporary injunction against the ordinance going into effect had been entered by Judge Peter Sakai on December 12th, after an earlier hearing on the motion. It remains to be seen how quickly the 4th Court of…
On January 3rd, the U.S. House of Representatives and a number of Democrat-led states asked the U.S. Supreme Court to immediately take up the recent court of appeals decision in Texas v. United States of America that had invalidated the law’s individual mandate and threatened to invalidate other parts of the law, if not Obamacare in its entirety. On December 18th, the Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit had decided that Obamacare’s individual mandate was unconstitutional because it was no…
Today, January 1st, 2020, the Department of Labor’s new rule on the salary threshold for the executive, administrative, and professional exemptions takes effect. Under the new rule, in order for an employee to be covered by those exemptions he or she must be paid a salary of $684 a week, or 35,568 a year, in addition to meeting the existing duties tests for those regulations. For more on this, please see my Blog Post of September 27, 2019. Happy New Year!
The City of San Antonio’s revisions to its Paid Sick Leave Ordinance did not save it from being blocked on November 22nd by state district judge Peter Sakai. Judge Sakai had held a hearing on the ordinance, now dubbed the “Sick and Safe Leave Benefits” ordinance, on November 7th. The revised ordinance was to have gone into effect on December 1st. On the 22nd, the judge notified the lawyers in the case that he was granting a temporary injunction sought…
On October 8th, just the second day of the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2019-2020 Term, the nine justices of the Court listened to oral arguments in three cases on LGBT rights, the Altitude Express v. Zarda, Bostock v. Clayton County, and Harris Funeral Homes v. EEOC. The Zarda and Bostock cases involve the issue of whether discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation can be “sex” discrimination under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and the Harris Funeral…
On October 3rd, the San Antonio City Council passed a revised sick leave ordinance, now called the “Sick and Safe Leave Ordinance.” The vote was 8-3, with Council members Clayton Perry, Manny Pelaez, and Rebecca Viagran voting “no.” The City Council accepted all the changes that had been recommended by a sick leave commission, and on the motion of Council member Ana Sandoval added a new one, the inclusion of paid interns into the definition of “employee.” The Council rejected…
In a long-awaited development, this week the Department of Labor has issued a final rule updating the salary threshold for the white-collar exemptions for executive, administrative, and professional employees. The Department expects the change to affect about 1.3 million workers, who will be reclassified as non-exempt or receive salary increases up to the new threshold, and to result in additional pay of $298.8 million a year. The salary an exempt white-collar employee must be paid to qualify for the exemption…
Eugene Scalia was yesterday confirmed to be the new Secretary of Labor by a 53-44 vote. He is a son of late Supreme Court justice Antonin Scalia, but in his own right he practiced labor law for years with a large firm and participated in many high-profile cases. He replaces the acting secretary of labor, Patrick Pizzella, who in turn replaced Secretary of Labor Alex Acosta. With Eugene Scalia’s background as a prominent labor lawyer, look for an interesting ride…