Texas News & Analysis

Research finds lack of mentorship and coaching. New data from media agency network Mindshare U.S. found that 42% of U.S. employees said their companies either don't offer mentorship programs or don't offer enough of them. Men were more likely than women to say they either got enough or more than enough mentorship programs at work, at 57% versus 42%. The research also found that 66% of U.S. employees rank ongoing feedback or coaching on their work as an important or very important benefit in the workplace. Yet 28% of people surveyed said that they either don't get enough ongoing coaching or feedback or that their companies don't even offer it. The data showed that women were more likely than men to feel that way, at 31% versus 25%.

NLRB chair claims joint-employment comment review not outsourced. Responding to concerns from congressional Democrats, National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) Chair John F. Ring says his agency is not outsourcing the review of public comments on the joint-employer standard. In March, Ring wrote a letter to Bobby Scott, chair of the House Committee on Education and Labor, and Frederica S. Wilson, chair of the House Subcommittee on Health, Employment, Labor & Pensions, saying the Board has not outsourced the substantive review of comments on its Notice of Proposed Rulemaking on what constitutes joint employment. Instead, he said the NLRB decided "to engage temporary support on a limited, short-term basis to perform the initial sorting and coding of the public comments." He said the process ensures confidentiality protections are in place, and the Board's professionals will perform the first substantive review of the comments.

AFL-CIO calls proposed overtime rule a setback for working people. AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka spoke out in March against the Trump administration's proposed rule to set a new salary threshold for employees eligible for overtime pay. The administration's proposed rule would require that employees make at least $35,308 a year to be exempt from overtime eligibility under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA). Exempt workers also must perform work that is executive, administrative, or professional in nature. The Obama administration had proposed a rule setting the threshold at $47,476 a year, but the proposal was struck down by a federal judge. "Lowering the threshold ignores the economic hardships faced by millions of working families," Trumka said. "This disappointing announcement is part of a growing list of policies from the Trump administration aimed at undermining the economic stability of America's working people."

NLRB chair responds to lawmakers on joint-employer rule. National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) Chair John F. Ring in January responded to a letter from members of Congress urging the Board to withdraw its notice of proposed rulemaking aimed at setting a standard for what constitutes a joint-employer relationship. Representative Bobby Scott (D-Virginia), chair of the House Committee on Education and Labor, and Representative Rosa DeLauro (D-Connecticut), chair of one of the committee's subcommittees, had urged the NLRB to abide by the joint-employer standard set out in the Browning-Ferris decision, a more employee-friendly standard than the one in the proposed rule. But Ring countered that the Browning-Ferris decision "leaves much unresolved." He also cited the "lack of clarity" as a reason the NLRB initiated rulemaking to set a joint-employment standard. He noted in his January 17 letter to Scott and DeLauro the "significant interest" in a joint-employment standard as well as a "wide range of views," as evidenced by the more than 26,000 individual