labor lawAdivision of labor law center

 The U. S. Department of Labor is sponsoring a series of free seminars on updated labor laws for employers in July 2008.

The Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs (OFCCP) of the U.S. Department of Labor provides training to federal supply and service contractors and subcontractors. Topics covered include the agency’s equal employment opportunity laws and regulations. Federal contractors are subject to more stringent anti-discrimination regulations than other employers. In many cases, those regulations apply to all divisions of a company, not just those holding federal contracts. Most of the seminars are scheduled for a half day.

The Department of Labor takes a proactive approach in training employers, especially those with new federal contracts, in the requirements they face under the law.

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One of the unexpected long-term consequences of Hurricane Katrina has been repeated violations of wage and hour laws in the Gulf Coast region. Faced with seemingly insurmountable clean up and rebuilding jobs, a boom-town economy and a huge labor shortage, many employers seem to have forgotten the most basic federal labor laws.

A number of companies from New Orleans to Houston have been fined – sometimes millions of dollars — for minimum wage violations since 2005. Abuses were so widespread that the DOL formed a special task force dedicated to wage and hour compliance in the Gulf Coast.

Perhaps not so coincidentally, the seminar is scheduled the day before the federal minimum wage will increase by 70 cents.

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