- President Picks Leaders for Labor Law-Focused DOL Entities
- Federal Contractor Minimum Wage Increase Rescinded
- Trump Order Targets Collective Bargaining for Federal Workers
- Mass Layoffs Begin at Federal Health Agencies
- Court Case Provides Added Insight on Reasonable Accommodations
- Supreme Court Refuses to Hear Case Challenging NLRB
President Picks Leaders for Labor Law-Focused DOL Entities
U.S. President Donald Trump took steps to staff key positions within the Department of Labor (DOL), nominating Andrew Rogers as head of the department’s Wage and Hour Division (WHD) and Jonathan Berry as labor solicitor. The two nominees, if confirmed by the Senate, would report to Secretary of Labor Lori Chavez-DeRemer.
Rogers previously was appointed by Trump as the acting general counsel of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, and worked in the WHD during the first Trump administration. Berry, a managing partner with Boyden Gray PLLC, has previous government experience in the DOL’s regulatory office, where he oversaw the development process of proposed and final rules.
The WHD enforces federal labor laws, including those related to minimum wage, overtime pay, recordkeeping, child labor, and protections for migrant and seasonal workers, to ensure compliance with labor standards (e.g., the Fair Labor Standards Act) and protect workers’ rights.
Within the Office of the Solicitor, the labor solicitor helps ensure labor laws are enforced and fairly applied to protect workers, including through litigation, regulatory guidance and legislative assistance.
Significant changes are on the horizon for the DOL as it and other prominent federal agencies prepare for possible deep budgetary and staffing cuts from Trump’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).
Federal Contractor Minimum Wage Increase Rescinded
President Trump recently issued an executive order that rescinded 18 executive orders created by then-President Joe Biden, including one that increased the federal contractor minimum wage.
Under Biden’s Executive Order 14026, issued in 2021, individuals working on or in connection with certain federal contracts or subcontracts were to earn at least $17.75 per hour in 2025, based on an escalator tied to inflation.
With the Biden order rescinded, contractor minimum pay reverts to $13.30 per hour, the amount established in 2014 by then-President Barack Obama’s Executive Order 13658.
Trump Order Targets Collective Bargaining for Federal Workers
The President on March 27 signed an executive order, “Exclusions from Federal Labor-Management Relations Programs,” which seeks to eliminate collective bargaining for hundreds of thousands of federal workers. The White House also published an ancillary fact sheet.
The order limits the departments and classifications of federal workers who can organize a union and instructs the government to stop engaging in any collective bargaining.
The Office of Personnel Management (OPM) issued a memo after the order’s release, providing the affected departments and subdivisions with guidance on terminating their collective bargaining agreements and ending voluntary union dues collection through payrolls.
The Trump administration filed a lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas to support its move to end collective bargaining, claiming in the suit that such agreements “significantly constrain” the executive branch.
Mass Layoffs Begin at Federal Health Agencies
Reuters reported April 1 that the Trump administration began laying off 10,000 staffers at U.S. health agencies. The news outlet stated security guards barred entry to some employees just hours after dismissal notices were sent out.
The workforce reductions, part of a broad plan to shrink the federal government and cut costs, impact high-profile agencies such as the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), and the National Institutes of Health (NIH).
Court Case Provides Added Insight on Reasonable Accommodations
A March 25 ruling by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit reinforced some workers’ rights to reasonable accommodations under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA).
The court, in the case Tudor v. Whitehall Central School District, determined that workers with a disability may be entitled to an accommodation even if they don’t need one to perform essential job functions.
The case centered around a high school math teacher in New York who sued her school district for not guaranteeing her a 15-minute break each afternoon. The teacher said the breaks were necessary to mitigate her post-traumatic stress disorder, even though she acknowledged she could effectively work, albeit “under great duress and harm,” without them.
A district court sided with her employer, but the Second Circuit vacated the ruling and sent the case back for reconsideration.
Supreme Court Refuses to Hear Case Challenging NLRB
The U.S. Supreme Court recently declined to hear a case challenging how courts review National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) decisions in the wake of the combined case ruling for Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo and Relentless v. Department of Commerce. That June 2024 Supreme Court decision ended the Chevron doctrine, which since 1984 required courts to defer to agency interpretations of ambiguous laws.
In the case National Labor Relations Board v. Valley Health System, LLC, Valley Health System had argued that the Ninth Circuit improperly deferred to the NLRB’s ruling on union dues, rather than conducting its own analysis. The Ninth Circuit maintained that its decision was based on independent precedent, not agency deference. The Supreme Court’s refusal to hear the case leaves the issue unresolved.
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