Posts Tagged ‘Barack Obama’

COBRA Subsidy Extended to May 31

Friday, April 16th, 2010

After weeks of debate, late last evening, President Obama signed into law the Continuing Extension Act of 2010, which extends, among other unemployment benefits, the COBRA subsidy to May 31, 2010. Extended twice previously, the subsidy was first slated to expire on February 28, 2010 and then on March 31, 2010.

The law is retroactive so if your business has terminated anyone between March 31 and yesterday, you will need to provide them with notice of this latest extension. As of now, the Department of Labor has not updated its Model Notices to reflect the extension; however, we anticipate that it will do so shortly. With the last extension, the DOL issued a Frequently Asked Questions section that was quite helpful. That too has yet to be updated. The Continuing Extension Act also extends unemployment benefits.

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Proposed DOL budget includes increase in funds for “worker protection programs”

Friday, February 5th, 2010

The recently-proposed FY 2011 budget for the Department of Labor requests $117 billion in funds, including $13.9 billion in “discretionary funding.” Although the $117 billion request is less than what the DOL received last year, the DOL has requested $1.7 billion for worker protection programs, up 4% from last year.

The DOL’s proposal includes a plan to hire at least 350 employees, and more than half of them would work in investigations and enforcement. The DOL has expressed a commitment to increasing its efforts in several areas, including Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs (OFCCP) compliance and worker misclassification. In fact, the proposed budget includes a request for $25 million for a joint initiative between the DOL and the Treasury Department to combat misclassification of employees as independent contractors. This initiative proposes to add an additional 90 employees in the DOL’s wage and hour division as well as 10 employees to support litigation efforts by the Solicitor of Labor. The OFCCP intends to hire additional staff as well to maintain its aggressive investigation and enforcement efforts.

While some praise the administration’s efforts to enhance worker protection programs, others have suggested that, given the current state of the economy, these programs may unjustifiably burden and punish employers. It will be interesting to see how the DOL’s proposed budget compares to the budget that eventually is approved by Congress. We’ll be sure to provide updates as developments occur.

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Further Expansion of FMLA Coverage For Military Families

Sunday, November 1st, 2009

It’s deja vu all over again for the FMLA and its military family leave provisions. Tucked into a 650+ page document and seemingly reminiscent of the first time FMLA coverage was extended to military families back in January 2008, the FMLA has very suddenly been expanded with respect to military families again.  Like the last time, these latest expansions took immediate effect when President Obama signed the National Defense Authorization Act  into law on October 28, 2009.  

The NDAA expanded the FMLA’s military family leave provisions in the following ways:

  • Qualifying exigency leave: Covered family members of active duty members of the Armed Forces are now entitled to FMLA leave for a qualifying exigency. Previously, this type of leave was limited to family members of Reserves or National Guard members who were called to active duty.
  • Caregiver leave for injured service members: Covered family members are now entitled to take 26 weeks of FMLA leave to care for a veteran of the Armed Forces, including the National Guard or Reserves, who is undergoing medical treatment or therapy for or recuperating from a serious injury or illness at any time during the five year period preceding the date of treatment, therapy or recuperation. Previously, this type of leave did not seem to allow family members to care for a service member whose injury or illness manifested itself sometime after the service member became a veteran.

Because the FMLA expansions took immediate effect, employers must amend their FMLA policies to reflect these changes right away.

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Still more on H1N1

Sunday, October 25th, 2009

Dilbert.com

Some people are brushing off all the swine flu news as media hype, but Barack Obama is not one of them.  Yesterday President Obama declared the swine flu outbreak a national emergency.   The announcement comes as vaccine manufacturers struggle to meet the high demand for the vaccine.  Although it is not expected that there will be a shortage of the vaccine overall, delays in delivery of the vaccine have resulted in officials having to turn away some people who are looking to get vaccinated now.

In addition, the Occupational Health and Safety Administration (OSHA) has announced that it will be issuing a compliance directive with respect to conducting inspections of healthcare employers to identify and minimize or eliminate high-risk occupational exposures to the H1N1 virus.  According to OSHA, the compliance directive will closely follow the Centers for Disease Control’s Interim Guidance on Infection Control Measures for 2009 H1N1 Influenza in Healthcare Settings, Including Protection of Healthcare Personnel. We will post an additional update when the directive becomes available.

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