Washington — A pair of key Democrats on the House Education and Workforce Committee are calling on the Department of Labor to withdraw proposed changes to its rule on determining joint employer status.
In a June 22 letter addressed to acting Labor Secretary Keith Sonderling, Reps. Bobby Scott (D-VA), the committee’s ranking member, and Ilhan Omar (D-MN), ranking member of the House Workforce Protections Subcommittee, wrote: “As you may be aware, in recent years, an increasing number of workers are employed by intermediaries as leased employees and permatemps, and by subcontractors, rather than directly employed. The proposed rule conflicts with Congress’ intent to define the employment relationship broadly to better protect these types of workers from substandard labor conditions.”
The pair note that a 2020 attempt by the Trump administration to change the “joint employment” rule was found to be unlawful by a federal court under the Administrative Procedure Act of 1946. That proposed rule covered only the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938.
The current proposed rule would apply the narrower definition of a “joint employer” to the Family and Medical Leave Act of 1993 and the Migrant and Seasonal Agricultural Worker Protection Act of 1983, as well as the FLSA.
“The proposed rule attempts to navigate around this previous court ruling by considering those four factors (the joint employer hires or fires the employee, supervises and controls the employee’s work schedule or...
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