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In August, the U.S. Court of Appeals in New Orleans granted an order enjoining the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission from treating its guidance on the use of criminal records as binding.  The State of Texas had sued the EEOC over the guidance, claiming that the guidance was substantive rule and that the EEOC did not have the authority to issue substantive rules.  Texas sought a declaratory judgment as well as the injunction. The EEOC issued the guidance in 2012…

On Wednesday, July 24th, State District Judge Sol Casseb III approved an agreement by business groups suing the City of San Antonio and the City Attorney’s Office to “stay” the implementation of the City’s sick leave ordinance until December 1st, and to “abate” the case until amendment of the ordinance or November 7th, whichever is earlier. The court-approved agreement capped a hectic days in which a different judge on Monday delayed approval of the agreement to Wednesday, the groups TOPS…

Last week, Secretary of Labor Alex Acosta, who had been under fire for agreeing to a plea deal with Jeffrey Epstein while a U.S. Attorney, resigned and left the Department of Labor, leaving Patrick Pizzella as the Acting Secretary of Labor.  The Trump Administration has named Eugene Scalia, a son of the late Supreme Court justice Antonin Scalia, as Alex Acosta’s successor, Eugene Scalia was once the Solicitor of Labor in the Labor Department, and, while in private law practice,…

On Friday, July 19th, an assistant San Antonio city attorney announced that the City had agreed with the attorney representing groups suing the City over its sick leave ordinance to delay implementation of the ordinance until December 1, 2019, instead of the date of August 1st set out in the ordinance.  It is not clear if or how the City Council or the Mayor had input into the City’s agreement to delay the implementation of the ordinance, but the Express-News…

Today business groups led by the Associated Builders & Contractors of South Texas filed a lawsuit in state court to stop the “Earned Paid Sick Time” ordinance passed by the City Council of San Antonio on August 16, 2018.  The groups asked for a temporary injunction to halt the implementation of the ordinance on August 1st, and, according to the news articles, a hearing on the request for an injunction is set for July 24th. The City of Dallas followed San…

The U.S. Department of Labor has issued a notice of a proposed rule increasing the salary threshold for the white-collar exemptions from the overtime requirement of the Fair Labor Standards Act from the current minimum of $23,660 to $35,308 a year, a significant increase but less than the $47,476 proposed by the Obama Administration in 2016. The current salary minimum has been in effect since 2004, and the Obama Administration rule increasing it to $47,476 was barred by a federal…

The United States Supreme Court recently sent back an important case on pay equity, Rizo v. Yovino, to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit because the judge who wrote the court’s opinion and supplied the deciding vote died before the ruling was announced. The Supreme Court explained that federal judges “serve for life, not for eternity,” and sent the case back to the Ninth Circuit. The issue in Rizo v. Yovino, whether an employer that has been…

The partial shutdown of the Federal Government has ended after 35 days, and about 800,000 federal employees are going back to work with backpay (or in some cases staying at work and getting paid for the the time they worked without pay). One of the many government programs now back up and running is E-Verify, the program under which employers may check out an employee’s ability to work legally in the United States.  The program’s website, e-verify.gov, warned that there…

In an unusual development, the United States Supreme Court ruled in favor of a worker in an arbitration case, ending a string of wins for employers in arbitration cases before the Court. In the case, New Prime, Inc. v. Olveira, a truck driver classified by a company as an independent contractor sued for wage and hour violations, and the company asked the court to order him to submit his claims to arbitration instead.  The driver claimed he did not have…

On January 1, 2019, San Antonio’s mandatory sick leave ordinance went into effect, except for Section 2 of the law, which contains the heart of the law, including the requirement that employers of various sizes to start providing paid sick leave to employees as early as August 1, 2019. San Antonio passed its sick leave ordinance in August 2018, months after Austin passed a similar ordinance.  Austin’s ordinance has been challenged by organizations like the Texas Association of Business as…