Month: November 2021

DWD Awarded $3 Million U.S. Department of Labor Grant for Job-Seeker IT upgrades

Posted on November 9, 2021 by

The Wisconsin Department of Workforce Development (DWD) has been awarded a $3 million grant from the U.S. Department of Labor to support its comprehensive upgrade and modernization of the Job Center of Wisconsin system and an internal case management system to better connect job seekers with employment opportunities.

The Comprehensive and Accessible Reemployment through Equitable Employment Recovery National Dislocated Worker grant will benefit workers affected by the COVID-19 pandemic and subsequent labor market disruption. DOL announced the availability of $43 million nationwide for the grant in June 2021, with a maximum award of $3 million.

The projects are expected to be implemented by late 2023. The work represents another major component of DWD’s comprehensive effort to improve service for customers – employers, job seekers, current employees and those experiencing disruption in their employment. In recent months, DWD also has introduced improvements to its virtual Job Center of Wisconsin, added a chatbot feature to help job seekers and employers connect, entered into a partnership with Google Cloud to expedite processing of unemployment insurance claims; and contracted with Flexion to overhaul its legacy Unemployment Insurance processing system.

Wisconsin Businesses Sue Biden Administration Over Vaccine-or-Test Mandate

Posted on November 5, 2021 by

Yesterday, the Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty (WILL) sued the Biden administration in federal court, on behalf of two Wisconsin businesses, challenging the Occupational Safety and Health Administration’s (OSHA) sweeping new vaccine-or-test mandate for businesses with 100 or more employees. OSHA’s emergency rule, issued November 4, requires businesses of a certain size to require proof of vaccination or regular COVID-19 tests for their employees. Companies that do not comply face penalties of over $13,000 per violation, or over $136,000 for a willful violation.

The lawsuit was filed in the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals. Federal law requires lawsuits that challenge OSHA emergency rules to be filed in the Court of Appeals, rather than in a federal district court, where lawsuits typically originate.

The Quotes: WILL President and General Counsel, Rick Esenberg, said, “This new rule is illegal and unconstitutional. It circumvents the normal legal process, along with Congress, to claim emergency powers to impose a mandate on American business. However you feel about the COVID vaccine or even the very different question of a vaccine mandate, the Biden administration is claiming an extraordinary power to rule by decree that could be used in the future in almost unlimited and unforeseeable ways.”

Steve Fettig, Secretary and Treasurer of Tankcraft and Plasticraft, said, “The order is unconscionable. OSHA does not know how to run our companies. We do. OSHA does not know how to keep our employees safe. We do. And we have done so successfully since the start of the pandemic without the interference of a federal bureaucracy. We respect our employees’ fundamental right to make their own private, difficult medical choices.”