Articles by Girish Anand

April 28, 2011

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OSHA Celebrates 40th Anniversary Today

The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) was signed into law 40 years ago today (April 28, 2011) by then-President Richard Nixon. In a ceremony marking the anniversary, OSHA head David Michaels noted that, at the time of signing, 14,000 Americans were dying on the job every year, a number that has been reduced to 4,400 through OSHA regulations and oversight, he added. "The ...

April 27, 2011

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NLRB Expands Protected Concerted Activity Scope

NLRA NLRB unionization

Section 7 of the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) extends workplace safeguards to employees' "protected concerted activity" in discussing wages, hours and working conditions, a protection that was generally thought to be confined to union organizing. Thus if a worker were fired for discussing a union issue with other employees, that could be considered a violation of the NLRA, ...

April 26, 2011

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New Jersey Bans Help Wanted Ads That Shun the Unemployed

The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) earlier this year held a series of meetings to look into the issue of businesses' refusing to hire the unemployed and blatantly announcing so in their help wanted advertisements. Now, New Jersey has taken matters into its own hands and outlawed ads that exclude the unemployed, whether the ads appear online or in print. The penalty for...

April 25, 2011

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DOL Seeking Comments on Electronic Disclosure Rules

benefit plans DOL summary plan descriptions

Under a 2002 electronic safe harbor rule, benefit plan administrators can use electronic delivery methods for summary plan descriptions, benefit statements, administrative forms, annual notices and the like. However, the safe harbor places various restrictions on the use of electronic delivery. For instance, merely posting the information on an intranet site is not deemed sufficient, but sendin...

April 22, 2011

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Wage, Hour, Overtime Settlements Fall in Dollar Value But Rise in Frequency

Wal-Mart is all over the news as the U.S. Supreme Court decides whether to let a massive class-action, gender-discrimination lawsuit with the potential for a multi-million-dollar judgment to go forward. Meanwhile, NERA Economic Consulting has pored through public records of 187 settlements based on wage-and-hour violations from 2007 to 2010 and found that, though the average dollar value of the...

April 21, 2011

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Free-Choice Voucher and 1099 Reporting Ended

1099 Reporting ACA Free Choice Voucher PPACA

The law that President Obama signed this month to eliminate 1099 reporting under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) also eliminated the "Free Choice Voucher" component of the health care act. Free Choice Vouchers were to be made available to employees who earned less than 400 percent of the poverty line and whose contribution to employer-sponsored health insurance ...

April 19, 2011

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Social Security Administration Resumes Sending No-Match Letters

DHS ICE IRS no-match letters SSA USCIS

The Social Security Administration (SSA) has resumed its practice of sending no-match letters to notify employers when any of their employees' submitted Social Security numbers do not correspond to a valid number on record. The SSA temporarily stopped issuing the letters in 2009 when the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), under pressure from both unions and business groups, withdrew its...

April 15, 2011

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PPACA Requirement for 1099 Reporting Axed

1099 ACA PPACA

Congress has passed and President Obama has signed legislation to repeal a much-loathed provision of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) that would have required the issuance of an IRS form 1099 for every expenditure of $600 or more. The mandate would have kicked in on Jan. 1, 2012, but HR4 amended PPACA to eliminate the requirement. In practice the provision would have force...

April 14, 2011

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DHS to Publish Form I-9 Final Rule Tomorrow

DHS I-9 USCIS

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is poised to publish its final rule concerning documents acceptable to verify employment eligibility on the federal Form I-9, which is used to establish a person's legal right to work in the United States. The final rule, which will be published tomorrow (April 15) in the Federal Register, adopts the wording and intent of the department's interi...

April 13, 2011

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Data Breaches Impact 10M Americans

Breach Notification Rule HIPAA HITECH

The Office of Civil Rights (OCR), the unit of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) responsible for monitoring health information breaches, recently reported that the total number of Americans affected by large data breaches has surpassed 10 million individuals. With the enactment of the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health Act (HITECH) and its Breach Notif...

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Girish Anand

Recent Articles

Practical articles on HR, Safety, compliance, and people operations—written for real businesses, not legal textbooks.

U.S. Department of Labor Officially Restores Prior Overtime Exemption Rules

On May 14th, 2026, the Wage and Hour Division (WHD) of the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) announced it has officially rescinded the 2024 overtime exemption rules. Specifically, the WHD published a technical amendment to restore previous 2019 regulations that dictated overtime exemptions for...

NLRB General Counsel Takes Action to Tackle Current Case Backlog

On May 6th, the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) and NLRB General Counsel Crystal Stowe Carey announced the bulk transfer of thousands of labor practice cases. Specifically, this action fulfills an initiative signed by the NLRB General Counsel earlier this year. Overall, the initiative...

Privacy Agency Invites Comments from Businesses on the CCPA’s Usage of Personal Data

Recently, the California Privacy Protection Agency (CPPA) issued a call for comments on the current state of personal data collection under the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA). Specifically, the invitation to deliver remarks was issued on April 20th, 2026. The information provided by the...

DOL Proposes New Joint Employer Rule To Unify Standards Under Federal Labor Laws

In April 2026, the U.S. Department of Labor issued a proposed rule to establish a single, clear standard for determining when joint-employer status applies under three major federal laws: the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA), and the Migrant and Seasonal...

DOL Updates Enforcement Approach for Employee Benefit Plans: What Employers Should Know

The U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) recently announced a significant change in its enforcement of employee benefit plan rules. The DOL will now focus more closely on serious violations that harm workers and retirees, meaning compliant employers may face less scrutiny under the updated approach.

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Articles by Girish Anand