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Assistance to Firefighters Program: Distribution of Fire Grant Funding
Get PDF[Excerpt] Firefighting activities are traditionally the responsibility of states and local communities. As such, funding for firefighters is provided mostly by state and local governments. During the 1990s, shortfalls in state and local budgets, coupled with increased responsibilities of local fire departments, led many in the fire community to call for additional financial support from the federal government. Although federally funded training programs existed (and continue to exist) through the National Fire Academy, and although federal money was available to first responders for counterterrorism training and equipment through the Department of Justice, there did not exist a dedicated program, exclusively for firefighters, which provided federal money directly to local fire departments to help address a wide variety of equipment, training, and other firefighter-related needs
Indoor Air Quality
Get PDF[Excerpt] “Indoor air quality or IAQ” is what we experience as the temperature, humidity, ventilation, and chemical or biological contaminants of the air inside non-industrial buildings, such as schools, offices, hotels, or banks – environments typically considered pristine when compared with industrial settings. In today’s world, we spend about 90% of our day indoors and the pollution indoors can be 2 to 5 times – and occasionally more than 100 times -- higher than outdoor levels. After all, we humans exhale (and otherwise produce) the endproducts of metabolism. We shed hair and dander. We have in our buildings all kinds of textiles, equipment, paper, cleaning products, and maintenance activities – so the air can be very different from “fresh outside air.” We notice this difference – sometimes simply as odors and sometimes as symptoms such as:
• irritation of eyes, nose, or throat
• dry mucous membranes and skin
• erythema – reddening or flushing of the face or skin
• mental fatigue, headache, sleepiness
• airway infections, cough
• hoarseness, wheezing
• nausea, dizziness
• hypersensitivity reactions.
Studies of buildings have indicated that poor IAQ can cause health problems, affect occupants’ productivity and reduce learning, as well as have liability issues and cause poor public relations – a building gets a bad reputation which affects leasing and purchasing
Overtime Exemptions in the Fair Labor Standards Act for White-Collar Employees: Frequently Asked Questions
Get PDFThe Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), enacted in 1938, is the main federal law that establishes general wage and hour standards for most, but not all, private and public sector employees. Among other protections, the FLSA establishes that covered nonexempt employees must be compensated at one-and-a-half times their regular rate of pay for each hour worked over 40 hours in a workweek.
The FLSA also establishes certain exemptions from its general labor market standards. One of the major exemptions to the overtime provisions in the FLSA is for bona fide “executive, administrative, and professional” employees (the “EAP” or “white collar” exemptions). The FLSA grants authority to the Secretary of Labor to define and delimit the EAP exemption “from time to time.” To qualify for this exemption from the FLSA’s overtime pay requirement, an employee must be salaried (the “salary basis” test); perform specified executive, administrative, or professional duties (the “duties” test); and earn above an established salary level threshold (the “salary level” test).
In September 2019, the Secretary of Labor published a final rule to make changes to the EAP exemptions. The 2019 final rule is effective on January 1, 2020. The major change made by the 2019 final rule is increasing the standard salary level threshold for the salary test from the previous level of 684 per week. The 2019 final rule does not change the duties and responsibilities that employees must perform to be exempt. Thus, the 2019 final rule would mostly affect EAP employees at salary levels between 684 per week in 2020. The Department of Labor (DOL) estimates that about 5.4 million workers would be affected in the first year, including about 1.3 million EAP employees who would become newly entitled to overtime pay and an additional 4.1 million workers who would have overtime protection clarified and thereby strengthened.
This report answers frequently asked questions about the overtime provisions of the FLSA, the EAP exemptions, and the 2019 final rule that defines and delimits the EAP exemptions
An Empirical Study of Fast-Food Franchising Contracts: Towards a New Intermediary Theory of Joint Employment
Get PDFThe “Fight for Fifteen and a Union” movement among fast-food workers and their allies has raised awareness about wage inequality in the United States. Rather than negotiating for better wages and working conditions with economically weak restaurant-level franchisees, the movement aims to affect the practices of what they view as the all-powerful brands—the franchisors. Few would dispute the notion that the franchisor brands, not their franchisees, set industry-wide standards and, thus, have the ability to offset rising wage inequality and improve working conditions. And yet, the movement has raised controversial law and policy questions about the legal responsibilities of these fast-food Goliaths under current labor and employment laws. Should fast-food brands, as franchisors, be legally responsible as “employers” for the wage-and-hour violations suffered by the individuals who serve us fast food in their franchised stores, pursuant to the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA)? Do they have a legal obligation, under the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA), to bargain with the labor unions representing fast-food workers in their franchised stores? This Article addresses these timely questions with original empirical research of forty-four contracts between top fifty fast-food franchisors and their franchisees in 2016. The contractual analysis reveals a new theory of joint employment via franchisor influence over franchisees’ managers. Unlike prior foci on franchisor-franchisee relations, and franchisor-crew member relations, this Article brings a new party to light: franchisees’ supervisorial managers. Jurisprudential analogy to the agricultural context, and case law regarding farm labor contractors as grower intermediaries, supports this proposed analytical lens. In sum, the theory developed from this rare dataset postulates why some of the Goliaths of fast food may indeed be “employers” with legal obligations to the workers in their franchised restaurants. Thus, courts, administrative agencies and legislators should be mindful of franchisor influence through intermediaries, as well as the complex relationships embedded in the franchise system that make disaggregating direct from indirect forms of influence difficult to impossible
Railroad Retirement Board: Trust Fund Investment Practices
Get PDF[Excerpt] The Railroad Retirement Act authorizes retirement, survivor, and disability benefits for railroad workers and their families. The Railroad Retirement Board (RRB), an independent federal agency, administers these benefits. Workers covered by the RRB include those employed by railroads engaged in interstate commerce and related subsidiaries, railroad associations, and railroad labor organizations. These benefits are earned by railroad workers and their families in lieu of Social Security.
Railroad retirement benefits are divided into two tiers. Tier I benefits are generally computed using the Social Security benefit formula, on the basis of earnings covered by either the Railroad Retirement or Social Security programs. In some cases, RRB Tier I benefits can be higher than comparable Social Security benefits. For example, RRB beneficiaries may receive unreduced Tier I retirement benefits as early as aged 60 if they have at least 30 years of railroad service; Social Security beneficiaries may receive unreduced retirement benefits only when they reach their full retirement ages, currently rising from aged 65 to 67. RRB Tier II benefits are similar to private pension benefits and are based only on railroad work.
The Tier I railroad retirement benefit that is equivalent to Social Security benefits is mainly finance by Tier I payroll taxes (typically the same rate as the 12.4% Social Security payroll tax) and Social Security’s financial interchange transfers.3 Tier II benefits, Tier I benefits in excess of Social Security benefits, and supplemental annuities4 are mainly financed by Tier II payroll taxes (currently 13.1% on employers and 4.9% on employees) and transfers from the National Railroad Retirement Investment Trust (NRRIT; hereinafter, the Trust)
New Windsor, Town of and New Windsor Superior Officers Bargaining Unit #7917, CSEA Local 1000, AFSCME, AFL-CIO, Orange County Local 836 (2019)
Get PDFThe Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) Block Grant: A Legislative History
Get PDF[Excerpt] The Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) block grant was created by the 1996 welfare reform law, the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996 (P.L. 104-193). It replaced the program of cash assistance for needy families that dated back to the New Deal, Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC), and some of its related programs. The enactment of the 1996 welfare reform law was the culmination of a debate about how to overhaul programs providing cash assistance to needy families with children—specifically, those headed by single mothers—that spanned four decades: from the 1960s to the 1990s.
The 1996 welfare law provided both program authority and funding (appropriations) for TANF through the end of FY2002.1 Most of the legislative activity on TANF since 2002 has been to extend the program funding and financing authority for TANF. Most of these extensions did not change TANF policy, though policy changes were included in extensions enacted in 2006, 2010, and 2012. The TANF Extension Act of 2019 (P.L. 116-4) extended TANF funding through June 30, 2019.
This report will begin with a brief overview of the history of the AFDC program and the welfare reform debates of the 1960s to the 1990s. That overview will be followed by a summary of the 1996 welfare reform law and the changes made since 1996. The report concludes with a detailed chronology of TANF legislation
Federal Employees’ Retirement System: Budget and Trust Fund Issues
Get PDF[Excerpt] Pensions for civilian federal employees are provided through two programs, the Civil Service Retirement System (CSRS) and the Federal Employees’ Retirement System (FERS). CSRS was authorized by the Civil Service Retirement Act of 1920 (P.L. 66-215) and FERS was established by the Federal Employees’ Retirement System Act of 1986 (P.L. 99-335). Under both CSRS and FERS, employees and their employing agencies make contributions to the Civil Service Retirement and Disability Fund (CSRDF), from which pension benefits are paid to retirees and their surviving dependents. Retirement and disability benefits under FERS are fully funded by employee and employer contributions and interest earned by the bonds in which the contributions are invested. The cost of the retirement and disability benefits earned by employees covered by CSRS, on the other hand, are not fully funded by agency and employee contributions and interest income. The federal government therefore makes supplemental payments each year into the civil service trust fund on behalf of employees covered by CSRS. Even with these additional payments into the trust fund, however, CSRS pensions are not fully pre-funded.
Prior to 1984, federal employees did not pay Social Security payroll taxes and did not earn Social Security benefits. The Social Security Amendments of 1983 (P.L. 98-21) mandated Social Security coverage for civilian federal employees hired on or after January 1, 1984. This change was made in part because the Social Security system needed additional cash contributions to remain solvent. Enrolling federal workers in both CSRS and Social Security, however, would have resulted in duplication of some benefits and would have required employee contributions equal to more than 13% of workers’ salaries. Consequently, Congress directed the development of the FERS, with Social Security as the cornerstone. The FERS is composed of three elements: (1) Social Security, (2) the FERS basic retirement annuity and the FERS supplement, and (3) the Thrift Savings Plan (TSP). Most permanent federal employees initially hired on or after January 1, 1984, are enrolled in the FERS, as are employees who voluntarily switched from CSRS to FERS during “open seasons” held in 1987 and 1998
Gender Pay Equity Analytics: A Case Study of a Large Multinational Company
Get PDFCompensation inequity is a key metric of workplace inequality. But there is scant documentation of internal company practices regarding gender pay equity and analytics. We present a rare case study of one company’s internal pay equity analytics. Using (anonymized) microdata from a single firm with more than 10,000 employees within ten selected countries, we estimated within-firm gender pay gaps, controlling for a host of measurable employee characteristics. We supplement these quantitative findings with some qualitative information about the organization’s associated HR practices for hiring and performance review as they relate to compensation. We also discuss the control variables chosen for this within-company gender pay gap analysis vis-à-vis explanatory variables commonly seen in the academic literature