Cutting Through the Blue Haze: Navigating Medical Marijuana Laws

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit recently upheld an adverse decision against a legal recruiter, finding that he misappropriated trade secrets and violated restrictive covenants after leaving his former employer and using candidate and client information to place attorneys through his new employer. The appeals court affirmed the lower (district) court’s decision… More ›

In a major turn of events, California Assemblymember Matt Haney (D-San Francisco) has decided not to advance AB 2741, a bill that would have imposed new rules on employers and staffing agencies that place contracted workers in the state, and has amended the bill to remove all references to staffing, including conversion fees. The California… More ›

Earlier this year, the Iowa House of Representatives introduced HF 2391, a bill aimed at regulating temporary nurse staffing agencies. Among the provisions of the bill was language authorizing the state’s health department to “establish an annual rate schedule that shall be no greater than one hundred fifty percent of the statewide average wage paid… More ›

By Alden J. Bianchi, Esq. Edward A. Lenz, Esq. Employers maintaining benefit plans, including health insurance plans covered by the Affordable Care Act, must comply with certain notice and reporting rules established by the U.S. Internal Revenue Service and the U.S. Department of Labor under the tax code and the Employee Retirement Income Security Act,… More ›

Last week, in a worker misclassification lawsuit involving the gig company Qwick, San Francisco City Attorney David Chiu announced in a statement that Qwick had signed a “groundbreaking agreement” that would require the company to reclassify the workers as employees, pay them $1,850,000 in restitution and accrued sick leave, and pay the city a civil… More ›

The Form I-9 is a complicated two-page document that is accompanied by a 65-page handbook explaining how to complete it. There are many facets of I-9 completion that are unique to staffing firms. E-Verify is an Internet-based system maintained by U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services that allows businesses to verify the work eligibility of employees. The American Staffing Association offers this document to address the Form I-9 and E-Verify issues that staffing firms face most frequently. More ›

In Congress, Rep. Lloyd Smucker (PA-11) has introduced HR 6833, the Improve and Enhance the Work Opportunity Tax Credit Act. The bill, which would update the WOTC for the first time since 1996, has bipartisan support and has been referred to the House Ways and Means Committee. As currently drafted, the bill would increase the… More ›

The new, stricter worker classification rules published by the U.S. Department of Labor (as reported in Staffing Today Jan. 9, 2024) point up the importance of clients using staffing firms that operate as employers and that classify their temporary workers as W-2 employees. The new rules increase the risk to clients that use app-based job… More ›