Labor Law Updates

As we usher in a new year, it’s time to turn our attention to the HR and employment law issues emerging for 2016. Last year was especially robust for legal developments that made a direct impact on employers, and 2016 is expected to be just as active. This pace of changes, coupled with many government agencies setting aggressive enforcement agendas, means every employer needs to be aware and ready.

If 2016 is anything like the past year, we can expect a steady pace of labor law posting changes – most certainly on the state level and, based on ongoing developments, on the federal level, too.

2015 was an action-packed year for labor law posting changes – largely due to a sweep of state-level legal developments. Specifically, there were 64 mandatory labor law changes across 37 states.

In the latest development with the federal contractor minimum wage, the Department of Labor finalized a five-cent increase over the previous year’s rate.

As previously reported, President Obama signed Executive Order 13658 establishing a minimum wage for federal contractors in February 2014. Effective January 1, 2015, the minimum hourly wage for workers on covered contractors was $10.10 an hour. As part of the Executive Order, however, the Secretary of Labor was authorized to make annual increases based on inflation.

The Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs (OFCCP) has released a new “EEO is the Law” poster. Supplementing the already required Equal Employment Opportunity poster, the additional posting reflects a number of regulatory changes from the past several years.