Jeffrey W. BrecherBlog Posts

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  • President Biden to Nominate Julie Su as New Secretary of Labor

    In the wake of the recently-announced and imminent departure of Secretary of Labor Marty Walsh for the National Hockey League Players Association, President Biden is expected to nominate Deputy Secretary of Labor Julie Su as Walsh’s successor to head the Department of Labor (DOL). Su has been in her current position since July 2021, and...
    March 1, 2023
  • DOL Issues Guidance on Handling Telework under FLSA, FMLA

    The U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) has issued guidance on the application of the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) and Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) to employees who telework from home or from another location away from the employer’s facility. The Field Assistance Bulletin (FAB) 2023-1, released on February 9, 2023, is directed to... Continue Reading
    February 17, 2023
  • Labor Secretary Walsh Expected to Leave DOL for NHL

    Although not yet officially announced, Secretary of Labor Marty Walsh is expected to leave the Biden Administration soon, to become the Executive Director of the National Hockey League (NHL) Players Association. Secretary Walsh has served as the head of the Department of Labor (DOL) since the beginning of the Biden Administration in 2021. During Secretary...
    February 8, 2023
  • White House Re-Nominates Acting DOL Wage & Hour Administrator to Lead Division

    On January 23, 2023, President Biden re-nominated Jessica Looman to formally become the next Director of the Wage and Hour Division (WHD) of the Department of Labor (DOL). Ms. Looman originally was nominated for the position in August 2022 and made it out of the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions in late...
    January 25, 2023
  • DOL Issues 15-Day Extension of Comment Deadline for Proposed Independent Contractor Rule

    On October 13, 2022, the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) published a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM), seeking to revise the standard for determining whether a worker is an employee or “independent contractor” under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA). The NPRM proposes to withdraw the current regulations, issued during the last days of the...
    October 25, 2022
  • FLSA Retaliation Provisions Protect Anticipated Collective Action Members, Third Circuit Holds

    Does a plaintiff’s allegation that he was about to join a pending Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) collective (class) action against his former employer, combined with the employer’s knowledge that he was a potential class member, sufficiently constitute being “about to testify” in an FLSA proceeding, such that the former employer’s actions in prohibiting the...
    September 30, 2022
  • Has Lynn’s Food Grown Stale? Courts Increasingly Question Obligation to Review FLSA Settlements

    For 40 years, the majority of federal courts have followed the holding of Lynn’s Food Stores, Inc. v. U.S., 679 F.2d 1350 (11th Cir. 1982), that FLSA claims may be settled only through approval by the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) or through a lawsuit filed by the individual, in which a court of competent jurisdiction...
    August 30, 2022
  • White House Nominates Acting DOL Wage & Hour Administrator to Lead Division

    Four months after its controversial nominee, David Weil, withdrew his name from contention as Administrator of the Wage and Hour Division (WHD) of the Department of Labor (DOL), the White House has nominated Acting Administrator Jessica Looman to head the post. Prior to joining the DOL as Principal Deputy Administrator of the WHD at the...
    August 3, 2022
  • DOL Announces Plan to Issue New Independent Contractor Final Rule

    The U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) has announced its intention to issue a new final rule regarding the employee-vs.-independent contractor analysis under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA). That announcement came by way of a June 3, 2022, blog post from Jessica Looman, Acting Director of the DOL’s Wage and Hour Division. The current Independent...
    June 6, 2022
  • Supreme Court to Review Fifth Circuit’s Oil Rig “Day Rate” Case

    In April 2020, a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit held that paying an employee a set amount for each day that he works (i.e., on a “day rate” basis) does not satisfy the “salary basis” component required to qualify as overtime-exempt under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA),...
    May 2, 2022

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