AGC recently hosted a webinar on The New Form I-9: What You Need to do to Avoid the Pitfalls and Stay Compliant.  An on-demand version of the webinar is available for purchase from the AGC Bookstore.

On April 29, 2013, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) issued a memorandum to its regional administrators advising them of a new effort using enforcement, outreach and training to protect temporary workers from workplace hazards.  The guidance is the result of a series of reports of temporary workers suffering fatal injuries during the first days on the job. 

Registration is now open for AGC’s 2013 Construction HR and Training Professionals Conference, to be held Oct. 16-17 at the Millennium Knickerbocker Hotel Chicago. The conference will provide two days of unique opportunities for HR, training and workforce development professionals in the construction industry.

In two All-Agency Memorandums (AAMs), the U.S. Department of Labor’s Wage and Hour Division (WHD) provides new guidance to contracting agencies with construction work covered by the Davis-Bacon and Related Acts.  One AAM explains when survey crew members are considered laborers or mechanics under the Davis-Bacon Act.  The other clarifies how proposed wage rates should be determined during the conformance review process, the process by which contracting agencies request additional classifications or rates that are not listed on the Davis-Bacon wage determination.  Contractors and subcontractors should consider both memorandums when requesting rate and/or classification changes to an applicable Davis-Bacon wage determination.

The employer community has won another significant victory in litigation challenging the authority of the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB).  On May 16, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit invalidated President Obama’s March 2010 recess of Craig Becker to the NLRB.  The court agreed with the DC Circuit’s finding in the Noel Canning case that the President’s authority to make recess appointments is reserved for intersession breaks of the Senate, not intrasession breaks.  Becker’s appointment took place during an intrasession break. 

The next quarterly conference call of AGC of America’s Union Contractors Committee will take place on June 19, 2013, at 3:00 p.m. Eastern Daylight Time.  It will include reports and a roundtable discussion of collective bargaining activities and other local and national developments relevant to union contractors.  Participation is open to all AGC-member union contractors and their chapter staff. 

Beginning January 1, 2014, individuals and employees of small businesses will have access to health coverage through a health insurance market (known as an "Exchange" or "Marketplace") in their state. Open enrollment for the Marketplace begins October 1, 2013. The Affordable Care Act (ACA) requires employers to provide employees with a notice of their coverage options available through the Marketplace ("Exchange" or "Marketplace" Notice).

The U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) issued a joint interim final rule regarding prevailing wages for the H-2B guestworker program.  The rule establishes a new methodology for calculating prevailing wages under the H-2B low-skilled, nonagricultural guestworker program.  It took effect on April 24, the date it was published in the Federal Register.

On March 12, 2013, AGC submitted comments to the U.S. Department of Labor’s Wage and Hour Division (WHD) concerning its proposal to collect information from workers about their employment experiences and knowledge of laws regarding the misclassification of independent contractors as employees. The proposed survey would involve prescreening nearly 18,000 households leading to over 10,000 interviews of workers from various industries over a two-year period.  Since construction has often been mentioned by the WHD as an industry of focus with regard to worker misclassification enforcement, it is expected that construction workers will be targeted for survey participation.

On July 30, 2012, the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) issued its decision in Banner Health System d/b/a Banner Estrella Medical Center, 358 N.L.R.B. No. 93 (2012), holding that an employer may not maintain a blanket rule prohibiting employees from discussing ongoing investigations of employee misconduct. In Banner Health, the Board rejected the employer's argument that the confidentiality instruction was necessary to protect the integrity of its investigations and found the employer's "generalized concern" insufficient to outweigh employees' rights under Section 7 of the National Labor Relations Act. Instead, the Board concluded, in every investigation, an employer must identify a specific need to protect witnesses, avoid spoliation of evidence or fabrication of testimony, or prevent a cover-up, before instructing employees to maintain confidentiality. Consequently, in the Board’s view, the blanket confidentiality instruction at issue in Banner Health violated the Act.