HR Tip - EEOC updates, child labor laws, preliminary injunction on some Davis-Bacon provisions

EEOC updates

• Recommendations for preventing harassment in the construction industry

  A recently released document, Promising Practices for Preventing Harassment in the Construction Industry highlights key recommendations industry leaders can take to combat harassment in construction.

• Sues employers for not filing EEO-1 reports

  In an unprecedented action, the EEOC sued 15 employers in 10 states alleging that they failed to file their mandatory EEO-1 reports and asked the court to order the employers to do so without delay. The states included New York, Florida, Georgia, Ohio, North Carolina, Texas, and Arizona.

Child labor laws changing in many states

At the state level, there has been a major effort to rewrite child labor laws with widespread efforts to weaken the laws but some to strengthen them. There has been a spike in labor law violations over the past ten years, which labor experts attribute to the tight labor market. See laws enacted or proposed by clicking a state on this map.

Preliminary injunction prevents enforcement of several provisions of the Davis-Bacon and Related Acts (DBA)

A federal judge in Texas has blocked the DOL from enforcing several provisions of its prevailing wage final rule under the DBA for construction contractors in Associated General Contractors v. U.S. Department of Labor, No. 5:23-CY-0272-C (N.D. Tex. June 24, 2024). These include:

• The provision that reads the DBA's prevailing wage requirements into all federal contracts by "operation of law"
• The provision narrowing the rule's "material supplier" exemption
• The provision applying the prevailing wage requirements to truck drivers and others not employed at the worksite