The U.S. military has decided to put independent lawyers in charge of how it investigates and prosecutes cases of sexual assault and other major crimes, sidelining commanders after years of pressure from Congress, Lolita C. Baldor reports for the Associated Press. The change was forced by members of Congress who believed that too often commanders would fail to take victims’ complaints seriously or would try to protect alleged perpetrators in their units. The Air Force, the Marine Corps and … Read the rest
I have many clients that use staffing/temporary agencies for securing personnel. The danger lurking in these relationships is that the two entities (staffing company and client) may be found to be a joint employer. Another danger, an offshoot of the joint employer problem, is that if the staffing agencies classify, or rather, misclassify, those workers as “independent contractors” when they send them to the clients, there may well be liability for the client company. The USDOL is now onto this … Read the rest
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The Petitions of the Week column highlights a selection of cert petitions recently filed in the Supreme Court. A list of all petitions we’re watching is available here.
In our modern gig economy, independent contractors constitute an increasingly large share of the American workforce. Companies like Uber, Lyft, and Amazon rely heavily on these workers, because the lack of any formal employment relationship means they do not have to provide them with benefits like health care and retirement … Read the rest