AGC’s National Construction Industry Workforce Summit to Take Place on Oct. 13 Registration is now open for the 2021 Construction HR and Training Professionals Conference to be held October 14-15, 2021, in St. Louis, Missouri.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) recently announced an extension of the flexibilities in rules related to Form I-9 compliance that was initially granted last year. Due to the continued precautions related to COVID-19, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) will extend this policy until Aug. 31, 2021.

The Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation (PBGC) has issued an interim final rule implementing the special financial assistance provisions of the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) to assist financially troubled multiemployer pension plans. (Click here for more background on ARPA’s multiemployer pension provisions.)

Negotiators conducting collective bargaining between January and June of this year agreed to raise construction craft workers’ wage and fringe benefits by an average of 2.6 percent or $1.57 during the first contract year, according to the Construction Labor Research Council’s (CLRC) latest Settlements Report. This compares to 2.8 percent or $1.58 for the same period in 2020 and 2.8 percent or $1.62 for all of 2020.

Event Will Take Place on October 13th in St. Louis, Missouri

The deadline to submit and certify 2019 and 2020 EEO-1 Component 1 data HAS BEEN CHANGED. The new filing deadline is NOW Monday, August 23, 2021. After delaying the opening of the 2019 EEO-1 Component 1 Data Collections on May 8, 2020, in light of the COVID-19 public health emergency, the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) announced the opening of the 2019 and 2020 EEO-1 Component 1 data collection on April 26, 2021.

Filings Now Due on August 23, 2021

The Small Business Administration (SBA) intends to withdraw the “Loan Necessity Questionnaire” that has heavily burdened and delayed all applications for forgiveness of Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) loans of $2 million or more. AGC sued SBA last December for developing the form entirely in secret, and without public input, and for using the form to change the de facto requirements for the forgiveness of such loans. During lawsuit settlement negotiations, AGC learned of SBA’s decision to withdraw the questionnaire. Recently, AGC has also received an exceptionally large number of reports about SBA approving these loans for forgiveness. This is excellent news for the thousands of AGC members who accepted such loans in good faith in order to keep their people working.

Complying with statutory workplace requirements does not necessarily excuse an employer from its bargaining obligations. In Frontier Communications Corp., the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) on May 26 upheld an Administrative Law Judge’s (ALJ) finding that an employer violated the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) when it refused to bargain over the effects of requiring employees to submit new I-9 forms. The Board’s affirmation highlights the sensitive interaction between mandatory compliance with federal statutes and a unionized employer’s obligations under the NLRA.

The US Department of Labor's - Wage and Hour Division (WHD) - Southeast Region (Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina and Tennessee) in conjunction with the Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs (OFCCP) is providing a free compliance assistance webinar specific for employers working on federal funded construction contracts (Davis Bacon and Related Acts).