News

The AGC Labor and Employment Law Council (LELC) recently held its 31st Annual Construction Labor Law Symposium in Washington, DC. Attorneys and chapter labor relations managers from across the country learned about the latest developments in labor and employment law and their impact in the construction industry.
The next quarterly conference call of AGC of America’s Union Contractors Committee will take place on June 25, 2015, at 3:00 p.m. Eastern Daylight Time.
The U.S. Department of Labor’s (DOL) Administrative Review Board (ARB) released its long-awaited opinion in the Weeks Marine case. In that decision, ARB announced a rule that is an important development for contractors working on Davis-Bacon projects: when contractors use employees who must travel away from their homes and live near the job site, the Davis-Bacon Act requires that contractor pay for their housing.
In recent days, the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) published new forms recommended for administering the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA). Since March 1, 2015, employers have been using forms that expired on February 28. The new forms can be found on DOL’s website.
The U.S. Supreme Court has held unanimously that a plan fiduciary has a continuing duty to monitor investments offered under a 401(k) plan, a duty that is separate and apart from the duty to exercise prudence in selecting investments in the first place. The Court overturned a decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit, which held that a claim for breach of fiduciary duty with respect to a fund selection was time barred unless made within six years of the date the fund was originally selected for inclusion in the plan. (Tibble v. Edison International)
The U.S. Department of Labor’s Wage and Hour Division (WHD) has scheduled five upcoming seminars throughout the country to educate federal and federally assisted contractors on the Davis-Bacon and Related Acts and other federal contracting wage laws the agency enforces.
FMI, a leading provider of management consulting and people development services to the engineering and construction industries, is collecting data for its comprehensive 2015 Talent Acquisition and Development Report. Construction industry executives, training directors and HR professionals are asked to join their peers in completing a brief survey to gauge the changes and practices for recruiting, retaining and training construction industry personnel. The results of the survey will first be revealed in October at AGC’s 2015 Construction HR & Training Professionals Conference in St. Louis, MO. Thereafter, all participants will receive a free copy of the final report before it is made available to others. To participate in the survey, click here by May 28.
On April 29, AGC CEO Stephen Sandherr testified during a hearing held by the House Education and the Workforce Subcommittee on Health, Employment, Labor, and Pensions on ways to further strengthen the multiemployer pension system. The bipartisan, noncontroversial hearing focused on the recommendations outlined in the joint labor-management proposal, Solutions Not Bailouts, to create a new “composite” type of multiemployer benefit plan that is distinct from either defined-benefit or defined-contribution plans. The new plan design was not included in last year’s bill that overhauled much of the multiemployer system, the Multiemployer Pension Reform Act of 2014, which tracked other policy recommendations from Solutions Not Bailouts.
AGC of America’s Open Shop Committee will hold its next web meeting on May 18 beginning at 3:00 p.m. Eastern Daylight Time. The event will feature a “Quick Learn” presentation by attorney Rick Samson of Ogletree Deakins on Preparing for the NLRB’s New “Quickie Election” Rule, as well as a labor law update by AGC staff.
The Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs (OFCCP) recently announced that the annual national percentage of veterans in the civilian labor force for 2015 is 7 percent. The new number is a slight decrease from 7.2 percent and is based on 2014 end-of-year data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.