Federal businesses together with the U.S. Division of Labor, Equal Employment Alternative Fee and Division of Homeland Safety supplied a sequence of updates on new and present regulatory efforts to the White Home Workplace of Administration and Funds on Friday.
The filings supplied timelines on forthcoming proposed and last guidelines akin to employee classification whereas asserting new rules addressing work hours for minors, protections for pregnant employees and disparate impression legal responsibility idea, amongst different topics.
The bulletins are a part of the Trump administration’s broader push to reshape federal employment legislation compliance, significantly within the antidiscrimination and wage-and-hour contexts.
DOL targets October for unbiased contractor rule
One of many largest objects given extra readability final week is the Trump administration’s unbiased contactor rule, the proposed model of which DOL revealed in February.
The proposal would return the company’s interpretation of the Truthful Labor Requirements Act nearer to that of the model adopted throughout Trump’s first time period in workplace. The rule can be centered on an “financial actuality check” that examines a employee’s major supply of earnings through two core components: the diploma of management the employee has over their work, and their alternative for revenue or loss primarily based on initiative, funding or each.
DOL set an October 2026 deadline for the unbiased contractor last rule. It estimated that the rule would offer an “preliminary, one-time regulatory familiarization price” of $488 million to be offset by a price financial savings of practically $683 million achieved by “elevated readability.”
Individually, the company confirmed it’s persevering with its work on a proposed rule deciphering joint employment requirements beneath the FLSA. DOL introduced a proposal in April however has but to offer a timeline for a last rule.
DOL additionally introduced new wage-and-hour regulatory efforts, with one proposal aimed toward addressing tip credit in opposition to the FLSA’s minimal wage necessities. Given an August timeline by DOL, the proposal would comply with up on an space that has been addressed by successive administrations.
One of the vital latest such efforts had been undertaken by the Biden administration, which sought to make clear when employers could take a tip credit score in opposition to the FLSA’s minimal wage necessities for workers who carry out each tipped and nontipped work, often known as a “twin job.” A federal choose struck down the proposal, and it was later discarded.
One other proposal follows a sequence of strikes by state and native governments to ease labor shortages by permitting youthful employees to tackle extra work hours. DOL focused September for a rule to amend its regulatory requirements beneath the FLSA referring to permissible work hours for 14- and 15-year-olds.
EEOC to revisit outdated steerage paperwork in enforcement shift
The nation’s federal office civil rights legislation enforcement company made headlines in latest weeks when it submitted a plan to the White Home to finish its annual demographic knowledge reporting requirement packages, just like the EEO-1. Final week, the company clarified that it could launch a discover of proposed rulemaking this month with a public remark interval on the proposal to finish in September.
“This EEO knowledge assortment was not mandated by statute, however was an agency-created requirement, which imposed a big monetary and administrative burden on America’s employers, together with hundreds of small companies,” the company stated in a assertion hooked up to the OMB discover.
Attorneys who beforehand spoke to HR Dive usually suggested HR departments to retain their EEO-1 reporting processes despite the information, each to organize for any resumption of this system and to adjust to relevant state knowledge collections.
EEOC additionally introduced the proposed rescission of a number of decades-old interpretive guidelines. One of many paperwork addressed disparate impression legal responsibility within the context of nationwide origin discrimination, which follows the Trump administration’s broader efforts to finish regulators’ reliance on disparate impression usually. An identical motion would rescind a 1979 interpretive rule on affirmative motion packages.
The fee additionally seeks to rescind a 1979 appendix to its pointers on sex-based discrimination, which EEOC stated had been written shortly after passage of the Being pregnant Discrimination Act. The company stated the appendix is “outdated” and predates the 2022 enactment of Pregnant Staff Equity Act.
In a LinkedIn submit Monday, Kalpana Kotagal, the EEOC’s lone Democratic commissioner, stated that she voted in opposition to the company’s regulatory adjustments. Particularly, Kotagal stated the potential rollback of EEO-1 reporting may “kneecap its means to analyze discrimination,” whereas the opposite proposed updates would weaken employees’ civil rights protections.
“I concern that the rescissions will depart a void that may sow uncertainty for employers and in the end undermine equal employment alternative,” Kotagal wrote. “That is an unforced error; we ought to be standing up for employees, not weakening their civil rights.”
Coming quickly: Yet one more replace to the H-1B visa program
Employers have already needed to alter to an overhaul of the H-1B visa program for expert overseas employees. Inside the previous 12 months, the Trump administration issued adjustments to prevailing wage charges for visa holders, carried out wage-based choice standards for visa petitions and introduced a $100,000 charge on new H-1B visas — the latter having been topic to a number of authorized challenges.
Final week’s regulatory agenda confirmed DHS is pursuing much more updates. The company stated it could suggest a brand new rule in August searching for additional H-1B program reform, together with revisions of cap exemption eligibility, better scrutiny for employers which have violated this system’s necessities and elevated oversight over third-party placements.
“These adjustments are supposed to enhance the integrity of the H-1B nonimmigrant program and higher shield U.S. employees’ wages and dealing circumstances,” DHS stated.
