COVID-19: News and Updates |
| Special #41 - June 2, 2020 |
| Articles and Updates Today
- ¶47,021 House passes the Paycheck Protection Program Flexibility Act — PENDING LEGISLATION, Jun. 2, 2020
- ¶47,020 CDC issues employer guidance on reopening office buildings — AGENCY GUIDANCE, Jun. 2, 2020
- ¶47,025 IRS postpones certain deadlines affecting employment taxes, employee benefits, and exempt organizations due to COVID-19 emergency — FEDERAL NEWS, Jun. 2, 2020
Constangy, Smith, Brooks & Prophete,LLPBY ROBIN SHEA ON 5.28.20
Constangy, Smith, Brooks & Prophete,LLPBY ROBIN SHEA ON 5.29.20
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| | | ¶47,021 House passes the Paycheck Protection Program Flexibility Act — PENDING LEGISLATION,
Jun. 2, 2020from GEA's HR answers now
On May 29, the House of Representatives passed the Paycheck Protection Program Flexibility Act by 417-1 vote. The bipartisan bill makes several changes to the Paycheck Protection Program, including that it:
• Extends the maturity period for loans issued after the date the bill is enacted from two to five years.
• Extends the covered period for PPP loan forgiveness from eight weeks from the date of origination to the earlier of 24 weeks from the origination date or December 31, 2020.
• Extends the covered period for using PPP loan funds from June 30, 2020, to December 31, 2020.
• Changes the rule providing that at least 75 percent of PPP loan funds must be used for payroll costs to 60 percent in order to receive loan forgiveness.
• Allows payroll tax deferment for all employers, even if they have not had a PPP loan forgiven.
"I didn’t want to see another local institution go out of business because Congress is more focused on politics than helping Americans who need it," co-author Representative Chip Roy (R-TX) stated in a press release. "I am thankful to my colleagues for their overwhelming support today, and I look forward to its swift passage in the Senate."
In a speech on the House floor, Dean Phillips (D-MN), the bill’s Democratic co-author, said, "our small business owners, the institutions of our main streets and the glue of our communities, are asking us to take actions to solve problems and engage in some good old fashioned teamwork … This bill will help people in the ways that they need, and we haven’t a moment to lose."
The Senate is expected to take up the bill this week.
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| | | ¶47,020 CDC issues employer guidance on reopening office buildings — AGENCY GUIDANCE,
Jun. 2, 2020
from GEA's HR answers now
On May 28, the CDC published its COVID-19 Employer Information for Office Buildings guidance. The guidance provides a step-by-step list of tips for employers to "create a safe and healthy workplace and protect workers and clients." The guidance is divided into six categories, contains link to multiple additional guidance documents, and includes corresponding recommendations:
Create a COVID-19 workplace health and safety plan. The CDC encourages employers to review its Interim Guidance that was issued in March, and is periodically updated.
Before resuming business operations, check the building to see if it’s ready for occupancy. Before allowing employees to return to work, employers should check to make sure that its HVAC and mechanical systems are operating properly and that any hazards due to prolonged closure, such as rodent infestation and mold, are remediated. The CDC recommends outdoor air circulation, if possible.
Identify where and how workers might be exposed to COVID-19 at work. Conduct a hazard assessment of the office to determine where employees are at increased risk for COVID-19 due to inability to maintain social distancing (i.e., meeting rooms, locker rooms, break rooms, waiting and check-in areas, entrances and exits). The agency recommends employers use the hierarchy of controls to determine how to implement feasible and effective solutions:
• Engineering controls: Isolate workers from the hazard. Modify or adjust seats, furniture, and workstations to maintain social distancing of 6 feet between employees; physically separate employees in all areas of the facilities including work areas and other areas such as meeting rooms, break rooms, parking lots, entrance and exit areas, and locker rooms; replace shared items, such as water coolers and coffee pots, with single-serving items; improve building ventilation, perhaps by use of HEPA filtration systems, exhaust fans (especially in rest rooms) and ultraviolet germicidal irradiation.
• Administrative controls: Change the way people work. Encourage sick employees, or those with a sick family member to stay home; conduct enhanced cleaning and disinfection of the workplace; conduct daily health checks such as temperature screening; stagger shifts, start times, and break times when possible to reduce the density of employees in common areas; require employees to wear a face covering over their noses and mouths; clean and disinfect high-touch surfaces. The agency’s guidance contains extensive additional information on administrative controls employers should consider.
Educate employees and supervisors about steps they can take to protect themselves at work. Provide training to employees on symptoms of infection, staying home when ill, social distancing, personal protective equipment, hand hygiene practices, and identifying and minimizing potential modes of COVID-19 transmission.
The CDC guidance highlights the need for employers to make major changes in order to prevent the spread of COVID-19 in the workplace. Employers will likely need to make changes to the physical workspace and its policies to meet the CDC’s recommendations. The CDC directs employers to its Interim Guidance, FAQs, and COVID-19 page for more information.
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| | | | ¶47,025 IRS postpones certain deadlines affecting employment taxes, employee benefits, and exempt organizations due to COVID-19 emergency — FEDERAL NEWS,
Jun. 2, 2020
from GEA's HR answers now
The IRS is postponing deadlines for certain time-sensitive actions due to the Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) emergency. This relief affects:
• employment taxes;
• certified professional employer organizations (PEOs);
• employee benefit plans;
• exempt organizations;
• individual retirement arrangements (IRAs);
• Coverdell education savings accounts;\
• health savings accounts (HSAs); and
• Archer and Medicare Advantage medical saving accounts (MSAs).
With certain exceptions, the relief postpones deadlines for certain actions due to be performed on or after March 30, 2020, and before July 15, 2020. The revised deadline for an affected taxpayer to perform a time-sensitive action described in the relief is July 15, 2020, unless a different revised deadline is specified.
Employers and PEOs. The relief applies to employers who perform correct employment tax reporting errors using the interest-free adjustment process under Code Sec. 6205 and Code Sec. 6413.
For certified professional employer organizations (PEOs), the relief provides a temporary waiver of the requirement that PEOs must file certain employment tax returns and their accompanying schedules electronically. The relief for PEOs applies only to (1) Forms 941 filed for the second, third, and fourth quarter of 2020; and (2) Forms 943 filed for calendar year 2020. PEOs can, but are not required to, file paper versions of these forms and their schedules. The waiver applies to all PEOs, and individual waiver requests do not need to be submitted.
Qualified retirement plans. For employee benefit plans (including a section 403(b) plan, a governmental section 457(b) plan, a SEP plan described in section 408(k), or a SIMPLE IRA plan described in section 408(p)), or any sponsor, administrator, participant, beneficiary, disqualified person, or other person with respect to the plan, the relief affects time-sensitive actions such as:
applying for a funding waiver under Code Sec. 412(c) for a defined benefit pension plan that is not a multiemployer plan;
for multiemployer defined benefit pension plans, actions due to be performed on or before the dates in Code Sec. 432(b)(3) for the certification of funded status and the notice to interested parties of that certification, Code Sec. 432(c)(1) and Code Sec. 432(e)(1) for the adoption of, and the notification to the bargaining parties of the schedules under, a funding improvement plan or rehabilitation plan, or Code Sec. 432(c)(6) and Code Sec. 432(e)(3) for the annual update of a funding improvement plan and its contribution schedules, or rehabilitation plan and its contribution schedules, and the filing of those updates with the Form 5500 annual return; and
for cooperative and small employer charity pension (CSEC) plans, actions to be performed on or before the dates in Code Sec. 433(c)(9) for making the contribution required to be made for the plan year, Code Sec. 433(f)(3)(B) for making required quarterly installments; Code Sec. 433(j)(3) for the adoption of a funding restoration plan, or Code Sec. 433(j)(4) for the certification of funded status.
For filing Form 5330, Return of Excise Taxes Related to Employee Benefit Plans, and payment of the associated excise taxes, the period beginning on March 30, 2020, and ending on July 15, 2020, will be disregarded in calculating any interest or penalty for failure to file the Form 5330 or to pay the excise tax postponed under the relief. Interest and penalties with respect to such postponed filing and payment obligations will begin to accrue on July 16, 2020.
• Other relief related to qualified retirement plans affects:
• extension of initial remedial amendment period for section 403(b) plans;
• certain actions affecting pre-approved defined benefit plans;
• the Employee Plans Compliance Resolution System (EPCRS); and
• requests for approval of a substitute mortality table.
Form 5498 series filers. For filers of Form 5498, IRA Contribution Information, Form 5498-ESA, Coverdell ESA Contribution Information, and the Form 5498-SA, HSA, Archer MSA, or Medicare Advantage MSA Information, the due date for filing and furnishing the forms is postponed to August 31, 2020, and the period beginning on the original due date of those forms and ending on August 31, 2020, will be disregarded in calculating any penalty for failure to file those forms. Penalties on the postponed filing will begin to accrue on September 1, 2020.
Rev. Proc. 2017-18, Rev. Proc. 2017-55, Announcement 2018-5, Rev. Proc. 2019-19, Rev. Proc. 2019-39, and Rev. Proc. 2020-10 are modified, and Notice 2020-18, Notice 2020-20, and Notice 2020-23 are amplified.
Exempt organizations. For exempt organizations, the relief applies to electronic submissions of Form 990-N under Code Sec. 6033(i), and filing suits for declaratory judgment under Code Sec. 7428.
SOURCE: Notice 2020-35, I.R.B. 2020-25, June 15, 2020.
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| Is COVID-19 fakery a federal crime? Constangy, Smith, Brooks & Prophete,LLP BY ROBIN SHEA ON 5.28.20 POSTED IN CORONAVIRUS, TRUE CRIME
The Justice Department is prosecuting a case of alleged phony corony.
Employees, if you need to make up a story to get out of working, you might want to try something other than a fake case of COVID-19.
The Atlanta Office of the U.S. Department of Justice has filed a criminal complaint against a man who allegedly falsely told his employer that he had COVID-19, and then sent a phony doctor's note to the employer.
According to the affidavit in support of the DOJ complaint, the employer had to shut down to have the facility sanitized, and had to send home at least four other workers who had been in close contact with the alleged miscreant -- with full pay, for 14 days. These actions cost the employer more than $100,000.
If the allegations are true, then the employer deserves legal recourse. But you may wonder how the U.S. government determined that this was a federal crime.
Well, it turns out that the doctor's note was sent to the employer via email. The employee and his worksite were in the State of Georgia, but the email was transmitted through servers in Iowa and Kansas before getting to the employer's headquarters in Pennsylvania. Therefore, interstate wire fraud!
Moral of the story: Next time you want to lay out of work, claim to have a bad cold. And you may want to ask a family member to hand-deliver your fake doctor's note.
Tags: Coronavirus, True Crime
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| | | | How to ask employees about their legal meds without being sued
Constangy, Smith, Brooks & Prophete,LLP
BY ROBIN SHEA ON 5.29.20 POSTED IN AMERICANS WITH DISABILITIES ACT, DRUG POLICIES
A cautionary tale.
In a decision issued this week, a federal judge in Greensboro, North Carolina, ruled that an employer's policy requiring employees to disclose their legal prescription medications may have violated the Americans with Disabilities Act.
Loflin Fabrication, LLC, is a metal fabrication shop not far from me. Like all metal fabrication shops, it is not a place where you would want to be under the influence of anything -- legal or illegal. In addition to having random testing for illegal drugs, the company requires employees to disclose any legal prescription medications they may be taking. At least, I think that's what they require.
In 2017, the company adopted a written drug policy, including this provision on the disclosure of legal medications:
. . . you must:
TURN prescriptions in to HR so they can be on file before you start work. Any employee taking prescribed medications will be responsible for consulting the prescribing physician, pharmacist, or the warning labels to ascertain whether the medication may interfere with safe performance of his/her job. If the use of a medication could compromise the safety of the employee, fellow employees or company property, it is the employee's responsibility to notify your supervisor and take a leave of absence to avoid unsafe workplace practices. No employee is permitted to work while under the influence of a narcotic.
I know people hate lawyers, and I hate myself sometimes, but this policy is a good illustration of why employers need them -- er, us. First, it says that employees must turn in their prescriptions to HR. No exceptions. (So, if I'm a woman taking birth control pills or a man taking Viagra, I have to let HR keep my prescription "on file"?)
But then it says employees who are on medications that could affect their safe performance of the job must tell the supervisor and take a leave of absence. (I guess the employee just walks up to the supervisor and says, "Hey, boss, I'm going to take a leave of absence because I'm on painkillers for my back." And then the supervisor says, "OK. Later, dude.") And, if the drug is a narcotic -- what? Do you get to tell your supervisor that you're taking a leave of absence, like your co-worker who was on the unsafe meds? Are you fired? Are you allowed to work with accommodations? Does HR keep your prescription "on file"? Who knows?
Well, apparently, no one at the company could agree on what the policy meant, either. Some people testified that they thought it applied only to mind-altering substances. Other people testified that they thought all prescriptions had to be turned in to HR, and they had done so. According to the court, "employees have told the company about prescriptions to treat many different medical conditions, including attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, allergies, bacterial infections and skin conditions, depression, and seasonal affective disorder."
Skin conditions? I'm on prednisone for the poison ivy rash I got while clearing the underbrush in my back yard last weekend, and I have to provide HR with a copy of my prescription?
The court acknowledged that the workplace was dangerous and that it might be appropriate, for safety reasons, to require some disclosure about legal medications. But the policy (and employees' understanding of it) was arguably overbroad, so that claim will go to a jury.
Here's the kicker: The employee on whose behalf the EEOC was suing is also the employee who drafted this policy, and she was terminated because of a drug testing issue. The judge dismissed the EEOC's claim that the employee was terminated because of a disability. However, a claim that the employee was unlawfully terminated for failing to comply with the allegedly unlawful drug policy that she drafted will go forward.
If I were on that jury, I would find in favor of the company on all claims. The nerve of drafting a bad policy, failing to follow it, and then suing when you got fired for failing to follow it. But enough about me. How should an employer go about requiring employees to disclose their legal medications? Here are a few suggestions:
First, you do have a right to expect your employees to be of sound mind and unimpaired when they come to work, especially if their jobs are safety-sensitive. Illegal drugs can impair, but sometimes legal drugs can do so as well. Pre-employment and random testing should take care of the illegal drugs, but with legal drugs, the only way you'll be able to protect employees is to require that they disclose any legal medications that could affect their ability to be safe while at work.
Keep your disclosure requirement as narrow as possible, while still allowing you to achieve your goals. When I'm drafting one of these "legal medications" policies, I usually word it this way: "You must notify Human Resources if you are taking any legal medication that could impair your ability to safely or competently perform your job." This makes it clear that the employer doesn't want to know about birth control pills, Viagra, or poison ivy drugs.
Make it clear in the written policy that you have every intention of complying with your ADA obligations. Something like this: "If you are taking this type of medication, the company will determine, in consultation with your health care provider, whether you can continue to perform your current job. If not, you will be temporarily removed from the safety-sensitive position and reassigned to another position or placed on a temporary leave of absence. When you are no longer taking the medication, you will be restored to your original position." I'd also include a statement in the policy that the information provided by the employee will be kept confidential and separate from the employee's personnel file, as required by the ADA.
Treat all legal medications the same, whether they are prescription or not. Some over-the-counter medications can have significant mind-altering effects, too. Not to mention alcohol and legal marijuana.
Apply this policy to all safety-sensitive positions, at least. This would include safety-sensitive positions, like machine operators, truck drivers, and outside sales reps who have to be on the road. But even non-safety-sensitive employees need to be clear-headed when they're at work, and they need to be able to perform their positions competently.
Finally, if -- despite all your best efforts -- employees turn in their Viagra prescriptions to you, GIVE THEM BACK.
Tags: ADA, Americans with Disabilities Act, EEOC, EEOC v. Loflin Fabrication, Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, Legal Drugs, Prescription Drugs
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| | | Georgia Department of Public Health COVID-19 Daily Status Report For: 06/02/2020
These data represent confirmed cases of COVID-19 reported to the Georgia Department of Public Health as of 06/02/2020. A confirmed case is defined as a person who has tested positive for 2019 novel coronavirus. (Total tests 565,612)
COVID-19 Confirmed Cases: Total 48,573 Hospitalized 8,334 Deaths 2,102 |
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Georgia Employers' Association |
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