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On October 1, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin remained far apart from reaching an agreement on additional COVID-relief funding legislation before Congress adjourns for the November 3 election. Among the areas where agreement remains elusive include the amount of additional funding for state and local governments, businesses and schools. Consequently, House Democrats are expected to pass their own $2.2 trillion COVID-relief bill largely along party lines with little to no prospects for passage by the GOP-controlled Senate. For the construction industry, many COVID-relief priorities too will likely wait until after the election, if not 2021, including additional funding for transportation, schools, hospitals and water projects, COVID liability protections for businesses and the deductibility of Paycheck Protection Program loan funds used for business expenses. �鶹��ý will continue to press for enactment of these priorities.

Enacts One-Year Federal-Aid Highway & Transit Extension

Each October, construction industry professionals in HR, training and workforce development gear up for the industry’s premier learning and networking event, �鶹��ý’s Construction HR & Training Professionals Conference, and this year is no different. The 2020 event has gone completely virtual and will be held Oct. 6-8, 2020.

The U.S. Department of Labor announced a proposed rule clarifying the definition of employee under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) as it relates to independent contractors. �鶹��ý has long called for federal clarification of the independent contractor status and preservation of legitimate independent contractor relationships, such as those that have historically existed in the construction industry.

�鶹��ý Seeks to Protect Employers’ Right to Maintain Safe Workplaces

While not ideal, enactment of a short-term continuing resolution (CR) will ensure federal agencies remain open and ongoing projects for direct federal contractors (e.g., those with contracts directly with the U.S. Army Corps, Navy, General Services Administration, etc.) remain uninterrupted through December 11. However, federal construction projects that need fiscal year 2021 funds to begin or start a new phase are prohibited from moving forward. That does not mean that all or many direct federal construction projects will grind to a halt, because the majority continue to utilize funds from previous fiscal years (thus falling outside the new project starts prohibition). Fully funding the government will be back at center stage in December. Nevertheless, �鶹��ý has resources available to your company in the event of a partial or complete federal government shutdown: What Contractors Should Know in the Event the Government Shuts Down.

One-Year Extension of the FAST Act Included

The U.S. Department of Labor announced a proposed rule clarifying the definition of employee under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) as it relates to independent contractors. �鶹��ý has long called for federal clarification of the independent contractor status and preservation of legitimate independent contractor relationships, such as those that have historically existed in the construction industry.

Each October, construction industry professionals in HR, training and workforce development gear up for the industry’s premier learning and networking event, �鶹��ý’s Construction HR & Training Professionals Conference, and this year is no different. The 2020 event has gone completely virtual and will be held Oct. 6-8. For more information or to register, visit here.

In a move sure to frustrate employers and usher in a wave of confusion, a New York federal court judge just struck down critical portions of the Labor Department’s new joint employer rule that went into effect a few months ago. Concluding that the agency’s rule has “major flaws,” U.S. District Judge Gregory Woods decided yesterday that the rule did not comport with the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA). The September 8 ruling tosses out the new standard that had applied to “vertical” employment relationships (when staffing company or subcontractor workers are contracted to work with another entity, for example), while keeping intact the rarer “horizontal” relationships between related entities that employ the same worker – which was not significantly changed by the final rule. Affected employers may have to chart a more difficult course in order to ensure they are not deemed liable in joint employer situations.