Friday, March 12, 2021
On March 11, 2021, the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) issued Notices of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRMs) to withdraw the Joint Employer and Independent Contractor Final Rules published during the previous administration.
The Joint Employer Final Rule
The Joint Employer Final Rule went into effect in January 2020 and addressed the standard for determining whether an employee may be deemed to be jointly employed by two or more employers. The Rule instructed that joint employer liability is guided by four primary, albeit non-exclusive, factors derived from the decision of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit in
Bonnette v. California Health & Welfare Agency, 704 F.2d 1465 (9th Cir. 1983). Those factors are whether, and to what extent, the proposed employer (1) hires or fires the employee; (2) supervises and controls the employee’s work schedules or conditions of employment; (3) determines the employee’s rate and method of payment; and (4)
Thursday, February 11, 2021
One day after President Biden entered office, the White House issued a memorandum directing all agencies to review, and consider delaying, any rules that had been issued by the former administration but that were not yet effective. Following that directive, the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) has proposed delaying the effective dates of the recently-issued Tip Regulations and Independent Contractor Final Rules. Under the proposal, the effective dates of these Final Rules would be postponed 60 days, from March 1, 2021 to April 30, 2021 for the Tip Regulations Final Rule and from March 8, 2021 to May 7, 2021 for the Independent Contractor Final Rule.