On Feb. 17, ABC sent a letter to the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Appropriations Subcommittee on Health and Human Services, Education, and Related Agencies Chairman Tom Cole (R-Okla.) and Ranking Member Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.) expressing concern over several regulations issued by the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) and the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB). 

On Jan. 20, the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL), Wage and Hour Division Administrator David Weil released a detailed Administrator’s Interpretation (AI) and related guidance on the definition of joint employment under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) and the Migrant and Seasonal Agricultural Worker Protection Act (MSPA).  The new DOL guidance comes on the heels of recent, controversial expansion of the joint employer definition by the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA). According to the new DOL guidance, joint employment occurs “when an employee is employed by two (or more) employers such that the

The 2015 National Safety Award Pinnacle, Excellence and Merit Winners are:

On Feb. 12, the West Virginia legislature voted 18-16 to override Gov. Earl Ray Tomblin’s vetoes of  a prevailing wage repeal bill and the West Virginia Workplace Freedom Act, making West Virginia the 26th Right to Work state in the country and the fourth state to pass Right to Work since 2012. 

Last week, the New Hampshire House rejected a bill (House Bill 1641) that would have required prevailing wage be paid on all state construction projects. Citing a union-backed study, proponents of the bill argued the legislation would create jobs, spur economic activity, and raise workers’ wages without increasing the cost of projects. Opponents rejected those assertions and insisted the state would pay more for construction projects under the provisions of the bill. 

The New York Independent Budget Office (IBO) has released a revised report on the impact prevailing wage requirements would have on affordable housing projects built with the 421a property tax break. The 421a tax credit had been the subject of extensive negotiations in the past months. In Jan. 2016, the parties involved announced they could not reach a compromise, killing the tax credit and jeopardizing Mayor de Blasio’s plans for 80,000 affordable housing units for New York City residents. The agency had initially estimated that prevailing wage requirements would add $2.8 billion to the initiative’s total, bu

In its Jan. 29 decision in Guardsmark, LLC, the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) extended its restriction on captive-audience meetings in the run up to a mail ballot union election by an additional 24 hours. Captive-audience meetings occur when an employer holds a group campaign meeting with employee voters during work hours to oppose union representation. The NLRB prohibits these meetings in the 24 hours leading up to the “scheduled time for conducting” a manual election; however, the NLRB had not imposed a similar preliminary ban in mail ballot elections until the Guardsmark decision.&

Learn how to contractually effectuate Integrated Project Delivery (IPD) and lean tools in a free webinar from ABC business partner ConsensusDocs titled The State of the Art in IPD Contracting: The New ConsensusDocs 300 and How to Contract for IPD & Lean. Contracts that match your intentions of actually encouraging collaboration and communication are more likely to achieve success. Much has been learned and refined during the past five years, and ConsensusDocs just released an entirely updated standard IPD agreement and new IPD Joining Agreement. You will hear from some of the lead drafters of the new ConsensusDocs 300 IPD Agreement and 396 Joining agreement. The webinar will be held

On Feb. 4, the West Virginia Legislature sent two important bills to the governor’s desk. The House of Delegates passed ABC-supported right-to work legislation, the “Workplace Freedom Act” (SB 1) by a vote of 54-46, while the state Senate approved legislation repealing the state’s prevailing wage law along party lines. The measures were intensely debated in both chambers in the weeks leading up to the votes. West Virginia’s prevailing wage law was mired in controversy following the passage of a reform bill in 2015 and ABC’s West Virginia Chapter has been a vocal supporter of repealing the state’s prevailing wage.

ABC has added Southern California Chapter member Christopher White of Tutton Insurance Services, Inc. to the Beam Club Hall of Fame level.