Contractor Rating Website for Subcontractors – ala Glassdoor, Yelp

According to management consultant PwC, it takes an average of 83 days for payment to reach contractors after invoicing. Levelset, a firm that provides services to help manage and expedite payment through cloud-based software, has introduced a new platform designed to do what Glassdoor does for employers or Yelp does for restaurants. General contractors and owners are rated on two separate criteria: 1) whether they are slow, medium or fast payers, and 2) overall experience in working with a particular company, and providing advice to others. Read full ENR article.

Department of Labor Updates:

New Salary Threshold and Bonus Opportunities under the Fluctuating Workweek

In 2019, companies were fined in excess of $333,000,000, which far surpasses any other previous year. This trend will continue and, in fact, SESCO expects more and more employers to be investigated for FLSA compliance.

A common misconception is that Wage and Hour disputes fall under the umbrella of Employment Practices Liability Insurance (EPLI). Although some Wage and Hour coverage may be found under EPLI, it is very unlikely and also depends how much you may be paying for coverage and the carrier’s willingness to offer the coverage. As such, your organization should be very proactive in conducting labor and employment law audits to include compliance to the Fair Labor Standards Act so as to avoid significant violations due to noncompliance.

Although not an all-inclusive list, the most common Wage and Hour violations that we find in FLSA cases and in our auditing practice include:

• Working off the clock or improper deductions – Pre-work, break times (less than 30 minutes), being interrupted while on lunch or working before or after clocking in or out are common violations.
• Paying nonexempt positions on an exempt salaried basis – A prime violation is paying managers and administrative staff on an exempt guaranteed salary basis when, in fact, these positions are typically nonexempt and thus due overtime for hours worked in excess of 40 hours per week (federal).
• Not paying overtime on bonuses and incentives – Employers must compute overtime on nondiscretionary bonus and incentive payments such as commissions for sales, attendance and safety bonuses, incentive payments for a job well done, etc.  

Click here to read the full article from ASA and SESCO Management Consultants.

OSHA Raises Civil Penalties for 2020

On January 15, 2020, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) announced a final rule to raise civil penalties for workplace violations by 1.8 percent. The final rule implements annual annual inflation adjustments of civil monetary penalties assessed or enforced by OSHA and other agencies within the Department of Labor in 2020.

OSHA’s penalty increases for workplace safety and health violations include:

• For a willful violation, in which an employer knowingly failed to comply with an OSHA standard or demonstrated a plain indifference for employee safety, the minimum penalty increases from $9,472 to $9,639 and the maximum penalty increases from $132,598 to $134,937;
• For each repeated violation for an identical or substantially similar violation previously cited by the agency, the penalty ceiling rises from $132,598 to $134,937;
• For each serious violation for workplace hazards that could cause an accident or illness that would most likely result in death or serious physical harm, the maximum penalty increases from $13,260 to $13,494;
• For each other-than-serious violation, the maximum penalty increases from $13,260 to $13,494;
• For each failure to correct violation, the maximum penalty increases from $13,260 to $13,494; and
• For each posting requirement violation, the maximum penalty increases from $13,260 to $13,494.

The new penalty amounts take effect immediately, applying to any penalties assessed after January 15, 2020.  

Upcoming ConsensusDocs Webinar: Keys for P3 Contracting Success

February 12th, 2020 at 3pm EST

Public-Private-Partnership (P3) contracts are often hampered by complicated agreements that unfairly shift risk to parties that cannot control or manage such risks. ConsensusDocs has just published a standard Owner/Concessionaire Agreement to design, build, finance, operate, and maintain (DBFOM). 

The ConsensusDocs 900 provides a short, comprehensive, and fair contract for P3 projects. The new ConsensusDocs Standard P3 Agreement will significantly lower the transactional costs for creating and negotiating a P3 project that is appropriate to use for any P3 project under $100 million. This webinar helps you assess the risk involved for pursuing potential P3 projects and the key points to negotiate.

Learning Objectives include:

• Learn how to structure a P3 Agreement to design, build, operation, maintain (DBOM) a project
• Learn different approaches to take contractually for financial mechanism, including approaches to use availability payments and indexes for the cost of the capital
• Understand P3 contractual best practices, including how to use milestones and completion dates to structure your P3 project

Presenter:  Ernest C Brown, Esq.

Moderator:  Brian Perlberg, Esq.

Click here to register for this informative webinar!