Zombie Apocalypse: Your Government’s Approach to Employee Regulation

October 29, 2019

Look, there is a lot to regulate between employees and employers in the mind of the US government. Here are just a few representative employment laws operating at the federal level for businesses on main street to those in industrial parks with less than 20 employees. I hope you are quite familiar with them and how your employees register human emotions and behavior. Any missteps here can lead to severe penalties

For example, the Consumer Credit Protection Act of 1968, Employee Polygraph Protection Act (1988), Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA) 1974 (if company offers benefits), Equal Pay Act of 1963, Fair Credit Reporting Act (1970), Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) (1938) (Major revisions in 2004), Federal Insurance Contributions Act of 1935 (FICA) (Social Security), Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) of 1996 (if company offers benefits), Immigration Reform & Control Act (IRCA) (1986), Labor-Management Relations Act (Taft-Hartley) 1947, National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) 1935, Occupational Safety and Health Act (1970), Uniform Guidelines of Employee Selection Procedures (1978), Uniformed Services Employment & Re-employment Rights Act of 1994, Occupational Safety & Health Act (OSHA) (1970) (maintain record of job related injuries and illnesses), Civil Rights Act of 1964 Title VII, Civil Rights Act of 1991, Title I, Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990, (ADA), the Age Discrimination in Employment Act (1967) (ADEA), and the Consolidated Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1985 (COBRA)

Now there are 7 environmental laws having employee protections are the, Water Pollution Control Act (WPCA), commonly called the Clean Water Act, Safe Drinking Water Act (SDWA), Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA), Solid Waste Disposal Act (SWDA, also called RCRA), Clean Air Act, Energy Reorganization Act of 1974 (ERA, which includes atomic energy), Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation and Liability Act of 1980 (CERCLA or “Superfund Law”), The Code of Federal Regulations (CFR) contains a concise description of the federal procedures.

The Surface Transportation Act (STA) provides a simplified and effective remedy for truck drivers who are fired for insisting on following safety regulations. It is enforced through separate regulations.

The Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 protects employees of publicly traded companies, and their subcontractors, from retaliation for reporting fraud.

On top of these regulations are ones that states also create their own iterations. And if you do work for the government that makes you a Federal Contractor so you need to add Executive Orders 11246, 11375, 11478, Vocational Rehabilitation Act of 1973, Drug Free Workplace Act of 1988, Vietnam Era Veterans Readjustment Act of 1974, Davis Bacon Act 1931, Copeland Act 1934, Walsh-Healy Act 1936, and the Service Contract Act 1965.

We have 2,748,978 Federal employees grinding over us and managing us all. Each day these people arise and work hard to modify, update, administrate, apply and enforce the full scope of these 48 employment laws. How can we keep up? How can we possibly have it right? Millions of Feds, hundreds of thousands of pages of impossibly complex law colliding with a business that needs to make money and move forward. The regulations and regulators keep coming at business like zombies. Take care of one and another appears. They never stop till they get you.

Now with this situation ask yourself this:

Do you make any money dedicating expensive manpower to all the zombie attacks?
Do you have the expertise to make your zombie defense “spot on” correct?
How much does it cost you to try to keep up with the zombies?
Are your employees any happier?
Do they work harder?
Is there a competitive advantage to do zombie defense in-house by yourself? If you’re not large firm, it may not fit reality to have an expensive full-time zombie specialist
Are you keeping to the business axiom, “If you don’t sell it don’t support it.”
Is there someone else who does serious zombie defense better and more efficiently?

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