Once again, the H-1B cap filing season is upon us. The H-1B is a popular U.S. work visa available to highly skilled foreign nationals who are offered a qualifying position by an employer. This visa is also known as a “specialty occupation” visa because in order to be eligible for this visa category, the offered position must require a minimum of a bachelor’s degree in a specific field.Continue Reading The Annual H-1B Cap Lottery: An Overview

Published in Law360 on March 28, 2023. © Copyright 2023, Portfolio Media, Inc., publisher of Law360. Reprinted here with permission.

George Costanza, a character from the classic sitcom “Seinfeld,” is the original “quiet quitter,” a term used for employees who do the bare minimum at work. Hear from the master himself:Continue Reading Water Cooler Talk: Quiet Quitting Insights From ‘Seinfeld’

On January 5, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) voted 3-1 to publish its Notice of Proposed Rulemaking, proposing a new rule that, if implemented, would bar employers from entering into noncompete agreements with their workers, and require employers to rescind existing noncompete restrictions with current and former workers. The proposed rule supersedes state laws that are less protective of employees, but keeps the state law that provides employees greater protection. The proposed rule excludes franchisees from the definition of “worker” and has a single, limited exception that applies to the sale of a business.Continue Reading FTC Proposes Rule to Ban Noncompete Clauses With Very Limited Exceptions

Register Here
Thursday, July 15 • 2:00 – 3:30 p.m. ET

Please join members of the Troutman Pepper Labor and Employment and Employee Benefits and Executive Compensation Teams, along with guest Steve Kapper, Associate Client Partner at Korn Ferry, as they discuss the “new” workplace and how to prepare for the next pandemic/economic recession.

Our

Reminder: HR Law Matters will be merging with Hiring to Firing, effective September 16. Our combined offering now has a deepened perspective to the ever-changing world of labor and employment law. Hiring to Firing will continue to be your go-to-resource on topics such as:

  • Discrimination, Harassment and Retaliation
  • Wage and Hour
  • Independent Contractor classification
  • COVID-19

HR Law Matters will be merging with Hiring to Firing, effective September 16. Our combined offering now has a deepened perspective to the ever-changing world of labor and employment law. Hiring to Firing will continue to be your go-to-resource on topics such as:

  • Discrimination, Harassment and Retaliation
  • Wage and Hour
  • Independent Contractor Classification
  • COVID-19
  • Human

Q. What is the standard for determining whether an individual is an independent contractor under Pennsylvania’s unemployment compensation law?

A. Following a recent decision from the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, businesses now face a tougher standard under the state’s unemployment compensation law for demonstrating that a worker is an independent contractor and not an employee. In A Special Touch v. Commonwealth of PA, the Court held that, to claim the exemption from tax liability for a self-employed worker, the employer must show that the individual in question is involved in an independent trade or business “in actuality,” rather than “having the mere ability to be so involved.”
Continue Reading Pennsylvania Supreme Court Clarifies Independent Contractor Standard For Purposes of Unemployment Compensation Taxes

Q. What is the new deadline to file an EEO-1 report?

A. The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) announced in a press release on May 7, 2020 that it will postpone its annual collection of EEO-1 demographic data until 2021, in light of the circumstances surrounding the novel coronavirus outbreak. This comes at a time when many employers were already waiting for a determination as to when the EEOC would begin collecting reports from 2019.
Continue Reading EEOC Delays EEO-1 Data Reporting Deadline to 2021 Due to COVID-19

On Wednesday, April 15, Pennsylvania Governor Tom Wolf, in conjunction with the state’s Department of Health, announced an Order requiring businesses to implement new safety measures in response to the coronavirus pandemic. The Order details a litany of new “social distancing, mitigation, and cleaning protocols” that businesses must observe with respect to both employees and customers. Effective immediately, the Order applies to “life-sustaining businesses” authorized to maintain operations during the crisis under a prior order issued in March, including grocery stores and pharmacies. The Governor has directed a number of state agencies to enforce the new requirements, including the Department of Labor & Industry, the Department of Health, and the Pennsylvania State Police.
Continue Reading Employers Should Act Now in Response to New Order from the Pennsylvania Department of Health