Merge c program

New Jersey's Local 25 Sheet Metal Union Failed to Employ Black and Hispanic Journeypersons, Federal Agency Charged NEW YORK - Local 25 of the Sheet Metal Workers' International Association and its associated apprenticeship school will pay a combined $1.65 million and provide substantial remedial relief in partial settlement of race discrimination claims made against them by the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), the federal agency announced today.EEOC's decades-old lawsuit continues to address allegations that Local 25, which is the trade union for sheet metal journeypersons in northern New Jersey, together with Local 25 Joint Apprenticeship Committee, discriminated against black and Hispanic journeypersons in hiring and assignments. The settlement covers violations from April 1991 through December 2002. Analysis of hours and wages showed African-American and Hispanic workers received fewer hours of work than their white co-workers for most of the 10-year period. … [Read more...] about Union and Apprentice Program To Pay $1,650,000 to Settle Part of EEOC Race Bias Lawsuit

The past 18 months have been a busy time for the staffers investigating hospital mergers at the Federal Trade Commission (FTC). In December 2011, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit affirmed a district court's denial of an FTC preliminary injunction motion,[1] from which the FTC and Solicitor General in March 2012 filed a petition seeking review by the U.S. Supreme Court (the "Phoebe Transaction"). Also in March, the FTC ruled that the 2010 acquisition of control over a rival health system in the Toledo, Ohio, area would have anticompetitive effects and ordered divestiture;[2] the parties reportedly plan to appeal (the "ProMedica Transaction"). In April 2012, the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois granted the FTC's request for a preliminary injunction against two hospital systems in Rockford, Illinois,[3] prompting the parties to abandon their proposed transaction (the "OSF/Rockford Transaction").At issue in each of these challenges was … [Read more...] about Hospital Consolidations: Facing Competing Pressures to Merge and Remain Independent

Updated: First-year associates joining Louisville, Ky.-based Frost Brown Todd will have a new title: apprentice.Rather than raking in a full salary, these apprentices will spend their first 1,000 hours learning on the job at lower pay and under stricter scrutiny. The pressure to bill will also be relieved under the program. New associates in the apprentice program will earn $80,000, but only be required to bill 1,000 hours. That’s 800 fewer hours than previous classes were expected to bill, firm chairman John Crockett told the ABA Journal today.Crockett explained that the 475-attorney firm tinkered with the apprenticeship idea about two months ago as an alternative to rescinding offers and deferring start dates. Now that the firm has decided to roll out the program, the challenge will be to identify apprenticeship opportunities and have a workable system in place by September when the new class of 23 lawyers arrives for work.Crockett says reaction from clients, and the incoming … [Read more...] about Frost Brown Todd Launches Apprentice Program

A lot has been written over the last few months about what to do now that the IRS has closed its determination letter program for ongoing individually designed tax-qualified retirement plans. Some see this as cause for celebration because we no longer have to go through the trouble of collecting documents, filling out forms, and negotiating with the IRS over renewals of qualification determinations.  Another “positive” result of the IRS position is that existing determination letters will no longer expire—although they will become stale as time passes, due to plan changes and legal developments.But most of the focus seems to have been on fear: as time passes, how will we know whether a retirement or 401(k) plan is still qualified? The answer to this question is important because plan sponsors and administrators have historically relied on determination letters for a host of purposes, including:Representations for M&A, financing, and other corporate … [Read more...] about Protecting Your Qualified Retirement Plan Now that the IRS Determination Program is (Mostly) Closed

In February 2017, we speculated whether the Trump Administration would eliminate the OFCCP as a possible cost-cutting measure. The discussion has continued since that time, and has, in the past weeks gathered more interest.The latest on the topic of the Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs’ (OFCCP) fate stems from a recommendation by the Heritage Foundation that OFCCP be merged into the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC). According to the Heritage Foundation report the EEOC and OFCCP are redundant:Taxpayers should not fund two separate and duplicative anti-discrimination agencies, one for federal contractors and one for all employers.There are differing opinions, of course, but the Foundation’s premise above overlooks many fundamental distinctions between the two agencies, the primary one being OFCCP unique authorization to oversee and enforce compliance with affirmative action obligations stemming from the federal procurement process.As … [Read more...] about Is A Merger of Office Of Federal Contract Compliance Programs And Equal Employment Opportunity Commission On Horizon?