Alabama 1st District U.S. Rep. Bradley Byrne, Chairman of the House Workforce Protections Subcommittee, led 83 of his House colleagues on Monday in sending a bipartisan letter to Department of Labor Secretary Alexander Acosta calling for the modernization of the joint employer standard under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA).
In the letter, Byrne and his colleagues wrote: “The FLSA’s joint employment requirements need to be modernized and harmonized to limit needless litigation against small businesses, as many different business formats are threatened by expensive lawsuits against multiple business partners for alleged wrongdoing against only one entity.”
The letter also pointed out that the current FLSA regulations were written roughly 70 years ago in 1958 and 1961 using language from bulletins dated 1939 and 1940. These guidelines for companies rely on case law from the 1940s and 1950s, well outpaced by the advancement in business practices and improvements over the last 70 years.
Last year, the House passed Byrne’s bill, the Save Local Business Act, a bill that rolls back a vague and expansive Obama-era National Labor Relations Board’s (NLRB) ruling that made businesses potentially liable for labor law violations committed by their subcontractors providing certainty for local businesses and their employees. It amended the National Labor Relations Act and the FSLA to clarify that two or more employers must have “actual, direct, and immediate” control over employees to be considered joint employers.
Read the full letter below:
The bipartisan letter was signed by: Congressmen Estes (KS), Aderholt (AL), Allen (GA), Arrington (TX), Banks (IN), Barletta (PA), Biggs (AZ), Blackburn (TN), Brady (TX), Brat (VA), Brooks (AL), Budd (NC), Burgess (TX), Buddy Carter (GA), Chabot (OH), Cheney (WY), Coffman (CO), Collins (GA), Comer (KY), Comstock (VA), Costello (PA), Cramer (ND), Crawford (AR), Cuellar (TX), Davidson (OH), Rodney Davis (IL), Duffy (WI), Ferguson (GA), Fleischmann (TN), Flores (TX), Gallagher (WI), Gibbs (OH), Gohmert (TX), Graves (MO), Grothman (WI), Guthrie (KY), Handel (GA), Harris (MD), Hice (GA), Hultgren (IL), Norman (SC), Jenkins (KS), Mike Johnson (LA), Sam Johnson (TX), Kelly (PA), Latta (OH), Lewis (MN), Long (MO), Loudermilk (GA), Love (UT), MacArthur (NJ), Massie (KY), McSally (AZ), Meadows (NC), Messer (IN), Mitchell (MI), Palmer (AL), Paulsen (MN), Pearce (NM), Scott Peters (CA), Poloquin (ME), Roby (AL), Roe (TN), Mike Rogers (AL), Rokita (IN), Rooney (FL), Rutherford (FL), Austin Scott (GA), Adrian Smith (NE), Sensenbrenner (WI), Pete Sessions (TX), Jason Smith (MO), Smucker (PA), Stefanik (NY), Stivers (OH), Glenn Thompson (PA), Valadao (CA), Wagner (MO), Walberg (MI), Weber (TX), Wenstrup (OH), Roger Williams (TX), Joe Wilson (SC), and Woodall (GA).
