Hunton Employment & Labor Perspectives

This article summarizes recent developments at the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), the Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs (OFCCP), and the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL). Employers and federal contractors should take note of the evolving regulatory landscape.

Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC)

Harassment Guidance Partially Vacated
On May 15, 2025, a federal district court in Texas vacated portions of the EEOC’s Enforcement Guidance on Harassment in the Workplace. Specifically, the court invalidated sections addressing ...

The Labor and Employment Team is pleased to announce that associate Reilly Moore has been named to the 2025 class of “Up and Coming Lawyers” by Virginia Lawyers Weekly.

A lawsuit recently filed in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California is testing the constitutional limits of California’s worker classification law. In the suit entitled Blu Nail Bar, Inc et al v. Newsom et al, a group of Vietnamese American-owned nail salons in Southern California are suing the state, alleging that the application of Assembly Bill 5 (AB 5) violates the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.

Wage and hour compliance continues to be incredibly difficult for employers, particularly given the increasing number of state and local laws. Many employers are often unaware that a wage and hour issue exists until served with a lawsuit. Please join Ryan Bates (Partner, Washington, DC) as he discusses these challenges potentially lurking within your company.

The “One Big Beautiful Bill Act” (“OBBBA”) signed on July 4, 2025, enacts the widely-publicized “No Tax on Tips” and “No Tax on Overtime” changes to the tax code. These provisions will decrease tax burdens for many employees, but also present new compliance obligations for employers. These changes are retroactive to January 1, 2025, so employers should be focused on these issues now.

The U.S. Department of Labor (“DOL”) has relaunched a program that allows employers to resolve potential wage and hour violations through a self-audit. 

On July 30, 2025, Acting General Counsel of the National Labor Relations Board (“NLRB”) William B. Cowen (“Cowen”) issued a General Counsel memorandum providing guidance to the NLRB’s Regional Directors on addressing jurisdictional issues between the NLRB and the National Mediation Board (“NMB”).

This month, in Sysco Machinery Corp. v. DCS USA Corp., the Fourth Circuit upheld the dismissal of a trade secret case, holding that plaintiffs asserting Defend Trade Secret Act (“DTSA”) claims must identify the misappropriated trade secrets with “sufficient particularity.” 

Effective July 1, 2025, the Contracts Honoring Opportunity, Investment, Confidentiality, and Economic Growth (“CHOICE”) Act became law in Florida.

On July 7, 2025, the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit in Apple Inc. v. NLRB (Case No. 24-60242) handed Apple a victory, declining to enforce the NLRB’s ruling that Apple had violated the National Labor Relations Act by unlawfully confiscating union literature left in an employee breakroom.