The U.S. Supreme Court announced on June 24 that it will be reviewing a lower court ruling that President Obama’s early 2012 “recess” appointments of three members to the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) were unconstitutional. The court likely will hear the case this fall.

ABC June 26 offered its support for the Secret Ballot Protection Act (H.R. 2346) in response to a U.S. House of Representatives subcommittee hearing meant to explore legislative opportunities to strengthen the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA), including H.R. 2346. 

On June 4, OSHA released a directive from Assistant Secretary David Michaels changing how the agency should proceed when there is a fatality investigation at a Voluntary Protection Program (VPP) site. 

The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration’s changes to the drivers’ Hours of Service rule, which changes the total hours a week a truck driver can work from 82 to 70 and implements a “34 hour restart” requirement, goes into effect July 1. The rule also requires a driver to take a 30-minute break for every eight hours of consecutive driving.

ABC, as part of the Family Business Estate Tax Coalition (FBETC), June 19 supported the Death Tax Repeal Act of 2013 (S. 1183/H.R. 2429) that would permanently repeal the estate tax.

The ABC Business Partner AIA Contract Documents released seven new documents on June 20, including new BIM and Digital Documents, a new document family called Program Management, and three free guides.  

The Department of Veterans Affairs Office of Construction and Facilities Management (CFM) is requesting comments on the use of a Project Labor Agreement (PLA) for a project in Biloxi, Miss. The project will include the renovation of two buildings at the Veterans Affairs Medical Center.

In testimony June 18 before the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Education and the Workforce Subcommittee on Workforce Protections, ABC General Counsel and shareholder with Littler Mendelson, P.C., Maurice Baskin said the Department of Labor’s (DOL) administration of the Davis-Bacon Act has, “hindered economic growth, increased the federal deficit and imposed an enormous paperwork burden on both contractors and the federal government.”

Economists from ABC, American Institute of Architects and National Association of Home Builders (NAHB) gave their perspectives June 17 about where the construction economy is headed during an online news conference. As a whole, things are improving, but recovery will continue to be slow unless more jobs are created.

The National Labor Relations Board’s (NLRB) August 2011 “Notification of Employee Rights” rule was struck down by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit on June 14, making it the second appellate court to invalidate the rule this year.