labor lawAdivision of labor law center

The Society of Human Resource Management (SHRM) has successfully petitioned the Obama administration to delay implementation of a law requiring some employers to use E-Verify when checking on new employees’ immigration and work status.

SHRM’s director of government affairs, Mike Aitken, said the human resources professionals’ organization is hoping that the Obama team’s delay “signals an interest, on the part of the government, to re-evaluate the rule.” According to the rules approved under the Bush administration, contractors would be required to use E-Verify to insure that any employees on federal projects were legally allowed to work in the U.S.

The original date for plan compliance was January 1, 2009. The new deadline is May 21, 2009.

Mr. Aitken said the SHRM was concerned (more…)

A combination of efforts by President Obama’s administration and the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM), backed by the courts, has extended the deadline for implementation of new E-Verify regulations for federal contractors.

The original deadline was January 1, 2009. That has been delayed until May 21, 2009. As a result, federal contracts will have several additional weeks in which to comply with E-Verify.

Starting on May 21, any companies that enter into contracts with the federal government will be mandated to use E-Verify in order to double-check the immigration and legal work status of new employers.

A confluence of events led to the delay. For one, President Obama’s Chief of Staff, Rahm Emmanuel, had sent memos to all federal agencies urging them to delay the effective dates of regulations pushed through during the final days of the (more…)

Effective May 21, 2009 companies entering into new federal contracts will have to use E-Verify to double-check the immigration and legal work status of new employees. This deadline has been delayed from January 15, 2009. 

The Office of Management and Budget or OMB recently extended the deadline after a request by the SHRM, or Society of Human Resource Management.

President Obama’s Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel sent a memo to all federal agencies, suggesting that they delay effective dates of any regulations introduced during the last few months of the Bush Administration. SHRM had partnered with other business organizations to fight the new regulation in court.

The Department of Justice concurred with the SHRM request to delay the deadline. Although a federal district court judge in Maryland must review the delay, it seems certain to be approved.

This action gives federal contractors (more…)

The U.S. Citizenship and immigration Services or USCIS has given employers  a few more weeks to start using the new I-9 form.

Effective April 3, 2009 every U.S. employer will be required to use a revised version of the employment eligibility verification form – more familiarly known as the I-9 form.

According to an interim rule that was published by the USCIS in December, 2008, employers were required to begin using the form on February 2, 2009. That deadline has now been delayed by 60 days.

According to unnamed sources at the USCIS, the delay will provide adequate time to complete a full review of the new form and the employment verification requirements. A notice of the delay will appear in the Federal Register.

Employers are invited to comment on the new rule for 30 days, until March 4, 2009.

A number of employment law and regulatory deadlines set in the last few months of the Bush Administration have been postponed (more…)

The U.S. Department of Labor’s Employee Benefits Security Administration or EBSA is giving some employers a reprieve from filing annual reports and returns following Hurricanes Gustav and Ike.

On September 22, 2008 the Employee Benefits Security Administration announced that employers in 29 Texas counties and 14 Louisiana parishes have until January 5 to file documents that are normally due between September 7, 2008 and January 4, 1009. These include Form 5500 and Form 5500 EZ annual reports and returns.

The extension applies to (more…)