COVID has been one of the biggest shocks to United States labor in recent history, increasing unemployment from a record 3.5% to 10.2% in July a few short months after the virus hit the country and lockdowns began. During this historic event, our government has worked hard to help its people, including implementing the CARES Act, which the Employment and Training Administration (ETA) aided by publishing 20 Unemployment Insurance Program Letters, hosting 15 webinars, and posting answers to Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) on 23 different topics in addition to helping states develop the functionality to make payments in each of their unique systems.

To help implement the CARES Act, the Wage and Hour Division (WHD) has expedited its publications, including fact sheets for workers and employers in a dozen languages, infographic posters for workplaces, 97 new FAQs, animated videos, and created an interactive online tool for determining eligibility. Since April, WHD has also hosted 1,100 outreach events through virtual platforms and fielded 250,000 COVID-19-related phone calls.

In response to our nation’s emergency, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) has also published 19 industry-specific guidance documents, a range of return-to-work guidance, 12 agency alerts, and three posters that have been translated into as many as 17 languages. 

And that’s just the tip of the iceberg. Read more about our government’s efforts to protect its people in The Hill article written by Patrick Pizzella, the Deputy Secretary of the U.S. Department of Labor.

The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) has announced that it will implement all the rule changes unaffected by the U.S. District Court order issued on May 30 regarding the Board’s December 2019 procedure amendments.

The Court’s order, which prevents the Board from implementing five provisions of the amendments, did not vacate the majority of the rule, which has an effective date of May 31, 2020. The amendments impacted include: reinstitution of pre-election hearings for litigating eligibility issues, the timing of the dates of elections, voter list timing, election observer eligibility, and timing of Regional Director certification of representatives.

Read the full press release here.

Labor Standards Director Arthur Rosenfeld has succumbed to pancreatic cancer after a six-month battle. His death on May 16 marked the end of a prominent career that began in 1979 when he first worked as a U.S. Chamber of Commerce labor attorney. Rosenfeld, who also served under George W. Bush as general counsel of the National Labor Relations Board and as director of the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service, came out of retirement in 2017 at the personal request of former-Labor Secretary Alexander Acosta.

Rosenfeld worked as Director for the Department of Labor until the week before his death. It is unknown at this point who will succeed him in his position.

Read more about his life and career at Bloomberg Law here.

In 2019, the Teamsters Union declined in membership by 65,000 members, marking the largest decline in the union’s membership in 20 years. In addition, the United Food and Commercial Workers Union, the United Steelworkers Union, and the American Federation of Government Employees lost members, according to Bloomberg Law’s analysis of the annual LM-2 reports filed by unions with the U.S. Department of Labor.

Overall private-sector union membership for 2019 was also at 6.2%, an all-time low. Read more about it here.

In a move labeled a “stealth attack,” Democrats have slipped “neutrality language” into the COVID-19 relief bill which imposes a gag rule on mid-sized businesses.

The provision requires that employers with 500 to 10,000 employees can’t take a government loan under the Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security Act unless they commit to remain neutral when a union tries to organize their workers.  

“What does a company surrendering their First Amendment rights have to do with the health and economic safety of Americans?” asked F. Vincent Vernuccio, a senior fellow with the conservative Mackinac Center for Public Policy. The answer? “It doesn’t.”

Read more about the provision here.

On April 1, 2020, the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) published three new amendments to its rules and regulations that govern the filing and processing of petitions for a Board-conducted representation election and proof of majority support in construction-industry collective-bargaining relationships.

Unfortunately, due to the national emergency caused by the coronavirus, the NLRB has decided to postpone the effective date for the amendments, pushing it back to July 31, 2020.

Read the official release here.