Department of Labor October 2012 – Federal Register Recent Federal Regulation Documents

OSHA solicits public comments concerning its proposal to extend the Office of Management and Budget's (OMB) approval of the information collection requirements specified in the Hexavalent Chromium Standards for General Industry (29 CFR 1910.1026), Shipyard Employment (29 CFR 1915.1026), and Construction (29 CFR 1926.1126).

The Department of Labor (Department) is delaying the effective date of the Wage Methodology for the Temporary Non-agricultural Employment H-2B Program final rule, in response to recently enacted legislation that prohibits any funds from being used to implement the Wage Rule for the first 6 months of fiscal year (FY) 2013. The Wage Rule revised the methodology by which the Department calculates the prevailing wages to be paid to H-2B workers and United States (U.S.) workers recruited in connection with a temporary labor certification for use in petitioning the Department of Homeland Security to employ a nonimmigrant worker in H-2B status.

Announcement regarding a change in eligibility for Unemployment Insurance (UI) claimants in New York in the Emergency Unemployment Compensation 2008 (EUC08) Program and the Federal-State Extended Benefits (EB) Program. The U.S. Department of Labor (Department) produces trigger notices indicating which states qualify for both EB and EUC08 benefits, and provides the beginning and ending dates of payable periods for each qualifying state. The trigger notices covering state eligibility for these programs can be found at: https://ows.doleta.gov/unemploy/claims_arch.asp. The following changes have occurred since the publication of the last notice regarding this state's EB and EUC08 trigger status: Based on data released by the Bureau of Labor Statistics on May 18, 2012, New York no longer met one of the criteria to remain ``on'' in EB, i.e., having their current three month average, seasonally adjusted total unemployment rate be at least 110 percent of one of the rates from a comparable period in one of the three prior years. This triggered New York ``off'' in the EB Program and the end of the payable period was the week ending June 10, 2012. New York has served the full 13 week ``off'' period on September 9, 2012. Given that the trigger rate in New York is currently at 8.9 percent, one look-back is at 110 percent, and the 13 week mandatory ``off'' period has concluded, New York meets the criteria to resume a High Unemployment Period in the EB Program. This payable period started with the week beginning September 10, 2012, and the maximum potential entitlement for the EB Program in New York is 20 weeks. In New York, where weeks end on a Sunday, a 13 week mandatory ``on'' period began for Tier 4 of the EUC08 Program on June 4, 2012. This mandatory 13-week ``on'' period concluded on September 2, 2012. Because the current trigger rate for New York is 8.9 percent, below the 9.0 percent threshold to remain on in Tier 4, New York has triggered ``off'' Tier 4 of the EUC08 Program and concluded an eligibility period in Tier 4 on September 2, 2012. Claimants in New York exhausting Tier 3 after September 2, 2012, can no longer establish Tier 4 eligibility.