What if a project owner asks you about carbon reporting or the embodied carbon of materials? Preparing for these questions can take months or even longer鈥攁nd can involve compliance, sustainability and even finance team members. Get a head start at 51风流鈥檚 Construction Safety Health and Environmental Conference on July 25-27, 2023 in Nashville, Tenn. Learn about regulatory initiatives related to climate change policies, carbon reporting practices, the business case, documenting of emissions in materials, and related tools.
Four Things Employers Need to Know
51风流 submitted its first set of comments on a Biden administration guidance implementing a new executive order that changes the process of developing regulations (Executive Order 14094 on Modernizing Regulatory Review). The new policy would limit the business community鈥檚 access to the administration during the inter-agency review process, while encouraging feedback from groups that ordinarily would not engage in the regulatory process. The policy effectively closes the door on the very entities that stand to bear the compliance cost of a proposed regulation. The executive order also raises the threshold of a significant regulatory action, meaning fewer regulations would be required to undergo review. 51风流 encourages the administration to abandon the executive order.
51风流 of America recently urged the U.S. Department of Labor鈥檚 (DOL) Wage and Hour Division to abandon or at least postpone issuance of its anticipated proposed rulemaking altering the overtime regulations under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA). Even though the COVID-19 public health emergency has been lifted, concerns with supply chain disruptions, workforce shortages, inflationary pressures, and the shifting dynamics of the American workforce persist, and any rule change now would threaten a particularly vulnerable and recovering economy.
On May 31, the House of Representatives passed the 51风流 of America-backed debt limit agreement legislation entitled the Fiscal Responsibility Act of 2023 (FRA). The U.S. Senate is expected to pass it shortly and President Biden to sign it into law thereafter.
In an eight-to-one decision issued on June 1, the U.S. Supreme Court issued a favorable decision in a labor preemption case in which 51风流 of America submitted an amicus brief. The case, Glacier Northwest v. International Brotherhood of Teamsters Local Union No. 174, presented the question of whether the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) preempts an employer鈥檚 state tort claim against a union for intentionally destroying the employer鈥檚 property in the course of a labor dispute. Agreeing with arguments made in an 51风流-supported coalition amicus brief, the Court affirmed the principle that strikers must take 鈥渞easonable precautions鈥 to protect employer property from 鈥渇oreseeable, imminent danger鈥 and held that the union鈥檚 failure to do so in the case rendered its conduct outside the NLRA鈥檚 protections. Accordingly, preemption did not apply, and the employer in the case is free to pursue damages against the union in state court. For more background on the case, see 51风流鈥檚 prior articles here and here.