OCTOBER 2009

• Mandatory E-Verify Rule for Federal Contractors Upheld by Federal Court
• Revised I-9 Employment Eligibility Verification Form Published
• New York Employers Must Provide Written Notice of Pay Rate and Pay Day to New Hires
• New York City Council Introduces Proposal Mandating New York City Employers Provide Paid Sick Days
• Congress Expresses Interest in Extending Unemployment Benefits

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Mandatory E-Verify Rule for Federal Contractors Upheld by Federal Court

A federal District Court in Maryland has dismissed a lawsuit challenging the implementation of the E-Verify rule for federal contractors in Chamber of Commerce of the USA v. Napolitano, No. AW-08-3444 (D. Md. Aug. 25, 2009), which clears the way for full E-Verify implementation on September 8, 2009. The rule would require federal contractors to use the federal E-Verify program to verify the legal status of all new hires and certain existing employees assigned to work on federal contracts. A federal contractor will not be required to begin using E-Verify on September 8, 2009, unless it wins a new contract(s) on or after the effective date which contains the E-Verify provision or unless any of its current federal contracts are modified/amended on or after September 8 to include such a provision.

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Revised I-9 Employment Eligibility Verification Form Published

U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) has released the updated version of the Form I-9, Employment Eligibility Verification, dated August 7, 22009. The new form is available on the USCIS website at http://www.uscis.gov/files/form/i-9.pdf. Employers may use Form I-9 with the revision date of either August 7, 2009, or February 2, 2009, for all new hires or re-verifications as there are no substantive changes between these two versions. Employers do not need to complete new forms for existing employees for whom an I-9 has been properly completed.

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New York Employers Must Provide Written Notice of Pay Rate and Pay Day to New Hires

According to new New York State labor law, employers in the state are will be required to advise new employees hired on and after October 26, 2009, in writing, of the employee's rate of pay and overtime rate (if eligible for overtime), and the employer's regular pay day. The employer must also obtain the employee's written acknowledgment that s/he has received this notice. See 2009 N.Y. ALS 270, amending New York Labor Law §195.1. While New York employers were already required to provide newly hired employees with information regarding their rate of pay and the employer's regular pay days, until now the notification need not be in writing. 

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New York City Council Introduces Proposal Mandating New York City Employers Provide Paid Sick Days

The New York City Council introduced an Earned Paid Sick Leave Bill on August 20, 2009, that would allow employees to accrue one hour for each 30 hours worked or up to 9 paid sick days per year.  Employees of small businesses (those with 10 or fewer employees) would earn up to five days annually.  Under the proposed legislation, accrual of hours begins at the commencement of employment, but sick days cannot be used until an employee has worked for 90 days.  Prompted by the H1N1 (swine) flu outbreak, the Bill also allows employees to use time off during the closing of a school attended by their children or the employees' place of business due to a public health emergency. Further, the Bill makes it a permission use of paid sick leave to tend to domestic abuse issues. The Bill currently has 35 co-sponsors in the 51-member New York City Council.  (One seat is currently vacant.)  Up to 1 million workers in the City could be affected should this proposal be adopted. If passed, New York City would join San Francisco, California, and Washington, D.C. in requiring all private-sector employers to provide employees a minimum number of paid sick days.

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Congress Expresses Interest in Extending Unemployment Benefits

The $787 billion economic stimulus package, passed by Congress in February 2009, included a seven-week extension of benefits to unemployed workers. The extension is set to expire at the end of 2009, but legislation (H.R. 3404, S. 1647) introduced by Rep. Jim McDermott, D-Wash., and Sen. Jack Reed, D-R.I., would extend the expiration date until December 2010. The proposed bills also afford 13 extra weeks of benefits to jobless workers in states that have unemployment rates of 8.5 percent or higher. The legislation has strong support among lawmakers from states with higher unemployment rates, such as Rhode Island, Michigan and Ohio, where unemployment is running two or three percentage points higher than the national average of 9.4 percent. The extension proposal is expected to meet with resistance because of an estimated increase to the federal deficit that would be caused by the extended unemployment benefits.

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Editor's Note: The items presented above contain only selected employment law cases and do not represent a comprehensive listing of all employment law settlements, awards and decisions in the United States. This information has been abridged from many different sources, and Diversity Central and EPS make no claims to any original copyrighted works. Diversity Central and EPS do not guarantee the accurateness of excerpts, articles, or information contained in this list.

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