PPP Flexibility, OSHA Mask Guidance

PPP Flexibility Act Clarification.

Buzz readers doubtless recall that President Trump signed the Paycheck Safety Program (PPP) Flexibility Act into regulation final week. One of many distinguished options of the laws lowers from 75 p.c to 60 p.c the requirement of the quantity of the mortgage that the borrower should spend on payroll prices. On its face, the brand new laws doesn’t seem to supply debtors any mortgage forgiveness if they don’t meet this new 60 p.c threshold (even when they spent, say, 59 p.c on payroll). Nevertheless, a assertion issued this week by U.S. Division of the Treasury Secretary Steven T. Mnuchin and U.S. Small Enterprise Administration Administrator Jovita Carranza explains that forthcoming rules will make clear that partial mortgage forgiveness should still be accessible even when the 60 p.c determine will not be happy. Keep tuned.

OSHA Steerage on Masks.

On June 10, 2020, the Occupational Security and Well being Administration (OSHA) launched a collection of continuously requested questions referring to using face masks within the office. Amongst different subjects, the steering explains the variations between material face masks, surgical masks, and respirators, and makes clear that material and surgical masks will not be acceptable substitutes in conditions that require using respirators.

NLRB Declines Jurisdiction Over Sure Spiritual Establishments.

In a call launched on June 10, 2020, the Nationwide Labor Relations Board established a brand new commonplace for figuring out whether or not it would assert jurisdiction over non secular establishments of upper training. Underneath the brand new commonplace (based mostly on precedent from the Supreme Court docket of the US), the Board is not going to assert jurisdiction over the establishment when it (a) holds itself out to the general public as a non secular establishment, (b) is nonprofit, and (c) is religiously affiliated. In so holding, the Board overruled its 2014 determination in Pacific Lutheran College, which seemed past the establishment itself by inquiring whether or not school members themselves performed a particular position in sustaining the non secular instructional surroundings.

Effectively, Effectively, Effectively.

On June 11, 2020, the Equal Employment Alternative Fee (EEOC) held a public assembly to approve (by a 2-to-1 vote) a draft discover of proposed rulemaking referring to the appliance of the Individuals with Disabilities Act and the Genetic Data Nondiscrimination Act to employer-sponsored wellness packages. The draft discover will now head to the Workplace of Data and Regulatory Affairs for overview previous to being made accessible for public remark. The wellness program authorized panorama has been in limbo since August 2017, when a federal courtroom struck down the EEOC’s rules that set forth the quantity and sort of incentives that employers might lawfully provide staff to encourage participation of their wellness packages. This state of limbo will doubtless proceed for a while, nevertheless, as this motion by the Fee represents solely a really preliminary step within the rulemaking course of.

EEO-1 Enchantment Dismissed.

The authorized problem to the Workplace of Administration and Price range’s determination to halt the gathering of worker wage and hours labored information through modifications enacted to the EEO-1 kind in 2016 got here to an finish this week, as the federal government’s attraction was dismissed by the U.S. Court docket of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. After all, each the plaintiff teams and the federal government beforehand agreed that the problem was moot as a result of the EEOC this previous fall accomplished the gathering of 2017 and 2018 information from employers. So what’s subsequent for EEO-1? Because the Buzz talked about a number of weeks in the past, the Fee introduced that there can be no info assortment in 2020, and it’s nonetheless ready for Workplace of Administration and Price range approval of a renewed EEO-1 information assortment kind (that doesn’t embody the Element 2 wage-and-hour assortment provisions that had been added in 2016).

Girls’s Bureau’s Birthday.

The Division of Labor’s Girls’s Bureau turned 100 years previous on June 5, 2020. In keeping with its enacting statute, the Girls’s Bureau was established to “formulate requirements and insurance policies which shall promote the welfare of wage-earning ladies, enhance their working circumstances, enhance their effectivity, and advance their alternatives for worthwhile employment.” The primary director of the Girls’s Bureau—former union organizer, Mary Anderson—was additionally its longest tenured, serving within the place from 1920 to 1944. The Girls’s Bureau performed an important position in advocating for, and later implementing, the Equal Pay Act of 1963, Govt Order 11246 (nondiscrimination and affirmative motion for presidency contractors), in addition to the Civil Rights Act of 1964. At this time, the Girls’s Bureau is helmed by Dr. Laurie Todd-Smith, and focuses on paid go away (notably underneath the Households First Coronavirus Response Act), in addition to packages referring to employment for navy spouses, apprenticeships, and nontraditional careers for ladies.