The Unified Agenda of Regulatory and Deregulatory Actions, released this past week, reveals a compendium of actions — and reversals of actions — that the Trump administration’s various agencies hope to carry out in the coming months, not the least of which is a revisit to and revision of the Obama overtime rule that is currently under a nationwide injunction.
Labor Secretary Alexander Acosta has not put a dollar figure on the salary threshold for overtime, but it appears to be somewhere toward the middle between the current level of $23,660 a year and the Obama administration’s proposed $47,476 annually. Meanwhile, the Department of Labor (DOL) is still seeking clarification on the whole issue of a salary threshold from the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, as one of the reasons a federal judge gave for issuing the injunction was that the department lacked authority to use salary as an overtime trigger.
Among other actions envisioned in the agenda are:
- The Wage and Hour Division (WHD) of the DOL intends to issue a proposed tip pooling regulation in August 2018 to incorporate the recent federal law barring employers from retaining employee tips.
- The WHD in September 2018 hopes to issue a reinterpretation of the “regular rate of pay” used in overtime calculations (i.e., the hourly rate that incorporates bonuses, commissions, salary and other sources of income).
- The DOL’s Employment and Training Administration (ETA) intends to revise the Code of Federal Regulations as it pertains to the registration of apprenticeship programs in following President Trump’s executive order 13801 on apprenticeships.
- The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) will seek to reduce the burden on employers for electronic filing under the Improve Tracking of Workplace Injuries and Illness final rule of the Obama administration.
- The DOL, seeking to repeal the “persuader rule” that requires employers to reveal their consultations during labor organizing efforts, has already submitted a final rule to achieve this and its fate rests with the Office of Management and Budget (OMB).
- The DOL this summer also plans to issue a final rule regarding association health plans, following another executive order.
- As mentioned in another post, the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) intends to issue a rule concerning what constitutes a joint employer relationship.
For more details, please search the Agenda.