The Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) was first enacted in 1938, to ensure “fair pay” for American workers. Sixty-five years later, it is invoked most often when minimum wage and overtime premium pay are under discussion. But it also includes a number of important secondary provisions—including one requiring employers and employees to determine which time at the workplace is considered “work” that must be compensated, and which is not.
Tags: Corporate Governance, Business & Legal, Employer Best Practices, Employee Rights
The year 2013 has been another relatively quiet one for most environmental health and safety (EH&S) compliance personnel. Continuing differences in Congress have stymied would-be initiatives on both sides of the partisan aisles, so there were no meaningful legislative changes.
Tags: Health & Safety, OSHA, Environmental risks, Environmental, EHS, EPA, Hazcom, Transportation
For the second year running, SEC activities during 2013 were dominated by its efforts to issue rules required by two major pieces of recent legislation:
Tags: Corporate Governance, Business & Legal, SEC, Employer Best Practices, Accounting & Tax, Accountants, JOBS Act
With legislation action on climate change deadlocked by partisan divisions in Congress, the Obama Administration is pursuing a growing set of administrative and regulatory initiatives under existing authority. Many of these involve actions by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) applying Clean Air Act (CAA) authority, but some involve other EPA authority and/or other agencies.
Tags: Health & Safety, Environmental risks, Environmental, EPA, Hazcom
The Occupational Safety and Health Administration’s (OSHA’s) Standard for Process Safety Management of Highly Hazardous Chemicals (usually referred to as “PSM”) in 1992, requires extensive risk assessments and reduction efforts by facilities where a significant incident involving these chemicals might have catastrophic consequences. OSHA adopted PSM in 1992, and has made only minor technical revisions in the ensuing two decades. However, several federal and state initiatives are developing recommendations and may lead to significant changes in 2014.
Tags: Employer Best Practices, Health & Safety, OSHA, Training, Environmental, EHS, Hazcom
December 1, 2013 marked the first major compliance deadlines for most employers to comply with revisions to the Occupational Safety and Health Administration's (OSHA's) Hazard Communication Standard (HCS or Hazcom) adopted by OSHA effective May 25, 2012. Hazcom provides basic chemical information in millions of workplaces in the U.S. (Canadian readers will be familiar with analogous Workplace Hazardous Materials Information System (WHMIS) requirements).
Tags: Corporate Governance, Health & Safety, OSHA, Training, Hazcom
Employers in the United States must verify that new hires are eligible to work in the U.S. This responsibility was created by the Immigration Reform and Control Act (IRCA) of 1986, which drafted employers—on pain of being prosecuted themselves—into partnership with the federal government to deny job opportunities to unauthorized workers. Employers' compliance responsibilities are based on use of the I-9 Form ("Employment Eligibility Verification") issued by U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS). As information technology develops, USCIS has expanded electronic reporting and data management tools, the most important of which is called E-Verify. Both I-9's and E-Verify continue to evolve, and have received recent revisions.
Tags: Corporate Governance, Business & Legal, Employer Best Practices, Employee Rights, Workplace violence, Internet
The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) requires employers to prepare and maintain records of occupational injuries and illnesses (I&Is), and to provide employees with annual summaries of I&I statistics for their "establishment." At present, OSHA and/or the Department of Labor's Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) can demand that selected employers report this information to them. BLS uses this information for statistical analyses of factors that cause workplace injuries and illnesses, and OSHA uses it to set rulemaking and enforcement priorities. In addition, OSHA requires all employers to report work-related accidents that result in one or more serious injuries or deaths (what OSHA calls "catastrophes").
Tags: Corporate Governance, Business & Legal, Employer Best Practices, Health & Safety, Employee Rights, Environmental
Most laws include penalty provisions, for assessment against people who fail to comply with legal responsibilities created by the laws. Back in 1996, Congress noticed that inflation was steadily reducing the deterrent effects of the penalties set forth in statutes, and that Congress itself was not reliably adjusting the maximum penalties assessable by enforcement personnel. Rather than burden itself with a responsibility to amend laws to keep up with inflation, Congress enacted the passed Debt Collection Improvement Act (DCIA) of 1996 to assign that responsibility to administrative agencies. DCIA requires most federal agencies to issue rules at least every 4 years, adjusting most penalties for inflation. In the ensuing 17 years, most agencies have made these periodic adjustments—larger in times of high inflation and lower in times of low inflation.
Tags: Corporate Governance, Business & Legal, Environmental risks, Environmental, EPA
Advances in field techniques have recently made hydraulic fracturing— “fracking”—a major part of energy production in the United States and Canada. Frackers pump high-pressure fluids into rock formations to expand cracks and create pathways for valuable hydrocarbons to flow out. The stimulant fluids are usually water-based, with additional chemicals (acids, surfactants, biocides, etc.) to improve effectiveness and solid ‘proppants’ to prop open the expanded openings (sand, etc.). Read my earlier blog here
Tags: Health & Safety, California Legislation, Environmental risks, Environmental, EHS, Hazcom, fracking, hydraulic fracking, Oil & Gas