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The CDC has issued long-awaited guidance on what fully vaccinated individuals can and can’t do, in the workplace and elsewhere. On March 8, 2021, the CDC issued its Interim Public Health Recommendations for Fully Vaccinated People, its first set of public health recommendations for fully vaccinated people. On the same day, the CDC posted an accompanying webpage entitled “When You’ve Been Fully Vaccinated,” detailing what has and hasn’t changed for people who are fully vaccinated.

What should employers keep top-of-mind given this new guidance?

  1. Fully vaccinated employees who have been exposed to COVID-19 do not need to quarantine if they are asymptomatic

According to the CDC, employees are considered fully vaccinated:

  • 2 weeks after their second dose in a 2-dose series (like the Pfizer or Moderna vaccines), or
  • 2 weeks after a single-dose vaccine (like Johnson & Johnson’s Janssen vaccine).

Fully vaccinated employees who have been exposed to someone with suspected or confirmed COVID-19 but who are asymptomatic do not need to quarantine or be tested for COVID-19 following the exposure, because risk of infection is low in a fully vaccinated person.

However, the CDC recommends fully vaccinated employees who do not quarantine still monitor for symptoms of COVID-19 for 14 days following an exposure. If they experience symptoms, they should follow standard protocol: isolate themselves from others, be clinically evaluated for COVID-19 (including being tested for the virus, if indicated), and they should inform their health care provider of their vaccination status.

Continue Reading The CDC Issues Guidance for Fully Vaccinated People

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Special thanks to guest contributors John Evason and Monica Kurnatowska.

The pandemic instantly proved that remote work is possible for a large swath of workers, but also brought a sharp focus on issues such as mental well-being, team engagement, productivity, data privacy and cybersecurity risks, and much more.

Simultaneously, as businesses were trying to adapt to Covid-19 and the practical and economic challenges that came with it, the horrific killing of George Floyd triggered one of the most profound moments of the year, bringing the Black Lives Matter movement to the forefront, along with demands for universal justice and equality.

Given these dramatic changes, leading multinational organizations are rethinking the meaning of modern employment. In the fall of 2020, we surveyed 250 human resources directors and employment legal counsel to discover how Covid-19 is accelerating change for multinational employers.

Click here to continue reading this article.

Originally featured in Bloomberg Law.

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As vaccines become more readily available in the US, employers have lots of questions about how this changes the return to the workplace. Here, our Labor and Employment attorneys discuss the vaccine policies and procedures that multinational companies are adopting, as well as the legal and practical considerations to address.

Click here to watch the video.

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Special thanks to our guest contributor, Teresa Michaud.

In this Quick Chat video, our Employment and Litigation attorneys discuss Baker McKenzie’s US 50 State Shelter-in-Place/Reopening Tracker. This resource is updated weekly and identifies relevant state-wide and local orders and their related expiration dates, as well as reopening plans and a quick reference “What’s Open” table for each of the 50 states plus Washington, D.C. Our brochure highlights key areas of expertise where we can support your business’s tracking and reopening plans.

Click here to watch the video.

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Special thanks to our guest contributors Matthew Gorman and Cristina Messerschmidt.

In this Mobility Minute, our Immigration and Data Privacy lawyers will be looking at the issue of data privacy, or lack thereof, at US ports of entry, including international airports. We will review a recent court decision that appears to further minimize protections for travelers entering the United States, as well as consider what can be done to protect sensitive data, if anything, and how a potential COVID vaccination chip and app could play into the mix.

Click here to listen to the Mobility Minute on demand.

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Special thanks to our guest contributors David Serwer and Alessandra Faso.

In this Mobility Minute, our Global Immigration and Mobility attorneys discuss the prospects for comprehensive immigration reform given the introduction of the U.S. Citizenship Act of 2021, as well as the Biden Administration’s choice of immigration as its first major legislative battle after the COVID relief bill. The Act includes an eight year path to citizenship, relief for DREAMERS, and reforms to our asylum system which have made headlines, but the Act also proposes meaningful changes to the employment-based immigration system in the United States.

Click here to listen to the Mobility Minute on demand.

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Special thanks to our guest contributor Daniel Urdiain.

In this Mobility Minute, Daniel Urdiain of our Mexico Global Immigration and Mobility practice explores the continuing challenges for those submitting immigration filings in Mexico City, as well as the current alternatives to conclude the process in the shortest amount of time.

Click here to listen to the Mobility Minute on demand.

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Special thanks to our guest contributors Anne Batter, Alexandra Minkovich, Joshua Odintz, Christopher Hanna, Etienne Couret and Derek Gumm.

After months of partisan bickering and Senate inaction, Congress finally passed another round of COVID-19 relief legislation as part of the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2021, P.L. 116-260, (“CAA”), which was signed into law on December 27, 2020. We provide a summary of the tax-related CAA provisions and key modifications to the Paycheck Protection Program (“PPP”), before discussing President Biden’s tax agenda for 2021. The CAA’s tax provisions focus primarily on providing economic relief to taxpayers by expanding provisions of the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act (“CARES Act”) and renewing extenders.

Employee Retention Credit Update

Under the CAA, the Employee Retention Credit (“ERC”) was updated to provide enhanced and extended benefits and to expand those employers that would qualify for the credit, beyond what was provided in the CARES Act.

Click here to continue reading.

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The US Department of Labor is developing a new regulation on joint employment under the FLSA, a possible first step towards reversing the Trump administration’s business-friendly rule on the joint employer standard.

First Public Notice of Possible New Regulation

On February 23, the White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA) posted on its website that the proposed rule, Joint Employer Status Under the Fair Labor Standards Act, is pending regulatory review.

The proposed rule must receive sign-off from OIRA before it is released, so we don’t know the substance of the rule for certain. However, as we blogged about in November, we expect the Biden administration to reverse the Trump administration’s March 2020 final rule on joint employment under the FLSA. That rule incorporated a narrow definition of “joint employer,” limiting the circumstances under which multiple companies could be deemed to “employ” the same workers (and consequently minimizing companies’ joint employer liability).

The Previous Administration’s Business-Friendly Rule

The Trump DOL’s rule ran into trouble in September 2020, when a New York federal district judge struck down much of the rule (see our blog, here). The DOJ appealed the decision to the Second Circuit and filed a brief supporting the legality of the rule on January 15, 2021-less than a week before Biden’s inauguration-creating an obstacle for the Biden administration to walk away from defending the regulation by way of litigation.

However, the rule can be rescinded through rulemaking, and it appears the Biden DOJ is beginning down that path. Whether the new proposed rule will seek to fully rescind the Trump administration’s rule, to replace it with an interpretation widening the scope of when multiple businesses are jointly liable under the FLSA, or to promote another approach, remains to be seen.

Check back for updates as the Biden administration continues to move forward with what we expect to be widespread change in the labor and employment landscape. For help navigating the latest developments or for a joint employment audit to understand your company’s level of risk, contact your Baker McKenzie employment attorney.

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As predicted here, on February 19, the DOL formally withdrew gig-worker guidance from the Trump administration. The DOL’s Wage and Hour Administration ditched a pair of interpretative letters from 2019, including one that platform-based companies could have used as a legal defense against claims that their drivers are employees subject to the Fair Labor Standards Act’s minimum wage and overtime provisions. The classification rules issued under the Trump DOL were widely viewed as business-friendly.

We will likely see more worker-protective interpretations of employee status during the Biden era (see more here). As such, we recommend working with counsel to perform a classification audit to review service provider agreements and ensure compliance.