With much fanfare, on Sept. 9, 2021, President Joe Biden announced, among other wide-ranging proposed requirements for employers generally, a COVID-19 vaccine mandate for federal employees and certain government contractors. The president stated that he signed an “executive order that will require federal contractors to” have their employees vaccinated. (“Remarks by President Biden on Fighting the COVID-19 Pandemic,” Sept. 9, 2021.) Although this recent announcement regarding government contractors and related announcements from the president have…

President Biden has just announced that he is tasking OSHA with implementing a new emergency rule mandating that employers with at least 100 employees either require their workforce to be vaccinated or require unvaccinated employees to produce a negative COVID-19 test every week.  Details are still very scant, but it does not appear that the rule will require employers to actually administer the tests.  Instead, the onus will be on unvaccinated employees to get tested…

As we previously discussed in May and July, the New York Health and Essential Rights Act (NY HERO Act), signed into law by then-Gov. Andrew Cuomo, required employers to take numerous health and safety measures in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. On Sept. 6, 2021, Gov. Kathy Hochul announced that the commissioner of the New York State Department of Health (NYSDOH Commissioner), under the NY HERO Act, designated COVID-19 as a highly contagious communicable …

New National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) General Counsel Jennifer Abruzzo appears ready and willing to help deliver on President Joe Biden’s promise to be “the most pro-union president [we’ve] ever seen.” Abruzzo issued a recent memorandum listing various types of cases on which the NLRB’s regional directors will be required to seek guidance during her term so that she can execute a “centralized” strategy in changing the labor law landscape. According to the memorandum, such…

No visit to Turkmenistan would be complete without a visit to the Darvaza Crater, more commonly known as the Door to Hell. This massive crater formed decades ago after a Soviet drilling rig collapsed. Roughly 40 years ago, the Soviets lit the crater on fire to burn off the methane. But Turkmenistan has some of the largest gas reserves in the world, which meant you couldn’t just make the gas go away. The fire…

The New York City Fair Chance Act (FCA) amendments expand protections for individuals with a criminal record and impose new obligations on employers that conduct background checks. The changes take effect July 29, 2021. The amendments require most background checks to be conducted in two steps,[1] provide “complete protection” for non-convictions and add specific FCA factors that must be evaluated for pending criminal charges.…