Articles by Girish Anand

June 26, 2017

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OSHA Proposes to Modify Beryllium Standard for Construction and Shipyard Sectors

The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (ISHA) has announced a proposed rule that would modify the agency’s recent beryllium standards for the construction and shipyard sectors. Representatives of the shipyards and construction industries, as well as members of Congress, raised concerns that they had not had a meaningful opportunity to comment on the application of the rule to their i...

June 23, 2017

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NLRB Adds 'Textual Harassment' to Supervisor Sins

The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), in a unanimous decision, has expanded oral harassment to include smartphone text-based harassment, which board watchers immediately dubbed "textual harassment." The National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) prohibits spoken harassment, by phone or in person, but when the law was written, there were no cell phones or text messages. In RHCG Safety Corp. and ...

June 22, 2017

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Senate Releases Details of Its Obamacare 'Repeal and Replace' Legislation

Gearing up for a hoped-for vote before the July 4th holiday, the U.S. Senate (actually, its Republican leadership) this morning released details about its proposed Better Care Reconciliation Act of 2017 in pursuit of the GOP's goal to "repeal and replace" the Affordable Care Act (ACA, or Obamacare). The measure is similar to but more moderate than the previously passed House of Representatives...

June 22, 2017

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GSA Orders Fair Pay and Safe Workplaces Clause Stricken from Federal Contracts

The Fair Pay and Safe Workplaces Final Rule, which required anyone bidding for a federal contract to voluntarily report any state or federal labor law violations when applying, has already been killed twice -- by legislative and executive action -- since Donald Trump was sworn in, and now the General Services Administration (GSA) has ordered it stricken from any contracts. The recently issued ...

June 21, 2017

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HHS Faces 500 Million Cyber Attacks Each Week

Beth Killoran, the chief information officer (CIO) for the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), recently told a tech conference that her department faces "500 million cyber hack attempts each week" due to the millions of medical records that HHS data centers control. "That's going to go up," she said at the MarkLogic Data Integration Summit June 20. "Because health data is the one th...

June 20, 2017

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MSHA Launches Training Assistance Program for Miners

Data recently compiled between October 2015 and March 2017 by the Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA) shows that less experienced miners – both at a mine and at a specific occupation – suffer injuries at a higher rate than more experienced miners. Over this 18-month period, miners with one year or less of experience at a mine suffered 903 injuries, compared to 418 for those who had wo...

June 19, 2017

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Executive Order Seeks to Expand Apprenticeships

Secretary of Labor Alexander Acosta on June 15 welcomed President Donald J. Trump’s step toward fulfilling his promise to grow the American economy with the announcement of an executive order to expand apprenticeships and vocational training, close the skills gap and reduce regulatory burdens on workforce development programs. “There are six million job openings in the United States,” said Sec...

June 19, 2017

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DOL to Request Public Input on Stalled Overtime Rule

Labor Secretary Alexander Acosta informed a House subcommittee on June 7 that the Department of Labor (DOL) will submit a Request for Information (RFI) to seek input on the Obama-era overtime rule that has been blocked for half a year by a federal judge's injunction. An RFI is a “pre-rulemaking” procedure during which an administrative agency, such as the DOL, asks the regulated community for...

June 15, 2017

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CMS Releases County-by-County Map of Obamacare Insurance Options

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) has released of 2018 projected Health Insurance Exchanges participation based on the known issuer participation public announcements through June 9, 2017. This map shows that insurance options on the Exchanges continue to disappear. Plan options are down from last year and, in some areas, Americans will have no coverage options on the Exch...

June 15, 2017

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Age Discrimination Persists, EEOC Public Meeting Concludes

Persistent age discrimination and stereotypes about older workers continue to channel older workers out of the workforce, limiting further economic growth, experts told the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) at a public meeting titled "The ADEA @ 50 - More Relevant Than Ever," held at agency headquarters in Washington, D.C. "With so many more people working and living longer, we ca...

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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