Excerpted from SHRM blog by Lisa Nagele-Piazza
President Donald Trump has promised to undo Obama-era regulations that business groups say are overly burdensome. What does this mean for wage and hour laws that affect employers?
A panel of attorneys at the American Bar Association’s 11th Annual Labor and Employment Law conference on Nov. 11 discussed key issues the Trump administration will tackle—including the definition of joint employer and the Fair Labor Standards Act’s (FLSA’s) salary threshold for overtime exemption.
When is a joint-employment relationship established? The National Labor Relations Board’s (NLRB’s) controversial Browning-Ferris decision expanded joint-employer liability. The board found that “indirect control” over working conditions is enough to establish a joint-employer relationship, whereas the previous standard required an employer to have “actual, direct, and immediate” control. Under the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA), joint employers may have collective bargaining obligations.
Joint employers can also be held liable for FLSA wage and hour violations—though the definition is different under the FLSA. The Obama administration issued interpretations with a broad view of when two companies could be legally responsible for the same employee, said Jeremy Glenn, a management attorney with Cozen O’Connor in Chicago. However, the Trump administration announced in June that it was abandoning that guidance.
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