On November 3, 2009, President Obama nominated the Honorable Victoria A. Lipnic as a Commissioner on the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC). Lipnic’s nomination has been sent to the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions for confirmation. 

Lipnic, a Republican, served as U.S. Assistant Secretary of Labor for Employment Standards from 2002 until 2009. While at the Department of Labor, Lipnic oversaw the Employment Standards Administration, which enforces labor and employment laws affecting 135 million workers in 7.3 million workplaces. Lipnic worked to revise the Family and Medical Leave Act regulations, modify certain overtime regulations under the Fair Labor Standards Act, and increase the Department’s responses to wage and hour opinion letter requests. In addition to her work with the Department of Labor, Lipnic also served as Workforce Policy Counsel to the House Republican members of the Education and Labor Committee and was in-house counsel to the U.S. Postal Service.

Lipnic currently resides in Virginia and is engaged in the private practice of law in Washington, DC. She received her Juris Doctor from George Mason University School of Law and her Bachelor’s Degree from Allegheny College in Pennsylvania.

President Obama has previously nominated Jacqueline Berrien and Chai Feldblum as Commissioners. Berrien and Feldblum, both Democrats, currently await Senate confirmation. It is expected that, if confirmed, Berrien and Feldblum would be designated by the President as EEOC Chair and Vice Chair, respectively. Obama’s nomination of a Republican to join the Commission may hasten the confirmation of all three nominees.

Core Provisions: This legislation would require employers who send employees home, or tell them to stay home, because they have symptoms of a contagious illness, or have been in close contact with a person who has a contagious illness, to pay the employees sick leave for each workday the employee complies with the order, up to a maximum of five workdays during a 12-month period.  The bill would apply to any employer with more than 15 employees, and to all full and part-time employees.  The Act was proposed to ensure that employees with symptoms of a contagious disease, including the H1N1 virus, are able to follow the recommendations of their employer and public health authorities without suffering financial harm.  The Act would take effect 15 days after it is signed into law and would expire in two years. 

Status: Rep. George Miller (D-CA) and six co-sponsors introduced the bill on November 3, 2009.  It was referred to the House Committee on Education and Labor that same day.

On November 2, 2009, the Supreme Court granted certiorari in New Process Steel L.P. v. NLRB, paving the way for it to resolve the validity of hundreds of decisions issued by the National Labor Relations Board since January 25, 2008. As a result of an impasse in the final year of the Bush administration, three vacancies have gone unfilled, leaving only two Board members, Democrat Wilma Liebman and Republican Peter Schaumber. Three federal courts of appeal have upheld the decisions of the two-member Board, while the D.C. Circuit ruled that the decisions were invalid. Oral argument will likely occur in March 2009 and a decision will be issued by June 2009.

The Board has been deciding cases only when the two remaining members agreed on a result. On October 21, 2009, the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee approved President Obama’s three nominees to the Board. However, the nominations are currently stalled following a hold placed by Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) over Republican concerns about nominee Craig Becker.