Entering its second week, the government shutdown continues to hurt the U.S. economy. Now, with the debt ceiling approaching, the International Franchise Association reiterates its call for Congress to pass a Continuing Resolution to fund the federal

Thursday, the House Subcommittee on Health, Employment, Labor, and Pensions held a hearing to address the future of union organizing and one particular strategy to build employee support for unionization, worker centers. Worker centers were examined

The effort to pass patent litigation reform was recently reignited and has rapidly picked up momentum over the first half of the year.  The debate this Congress has a distinctly different tone from the debate over the America Invents Act, though.  Rather than the traditional industry divide of “big tech vs. big PhRMA,” there has been a broad based, cross-industry call for patent litigation reform, as evidenced by a letter to Congressional leadership from 50 trade associations stating that something must be done now.

IFA’s efforts to defeat Senate Bill 610 in California have been successful.  Last night, Senate Bill 610 was defeated for the year as the sponsor of the bill pulled the legislation off today’s California Assembly Business, Professions & Consumer Protections Committee docket when it became clear there was scant support for the bill by the Committee’s 10 Democrats and four Republicans.  

Yesterday, the Health Subcommittee of the House Committee on Ways & Means held a hearing to examine the one-year delay of the Affordable Care Act’s employer mandate.  Last Tuesday, the Administration announced that it would be delaying the implementation until 2015.

Recently, legislation was introduced in both the House and Senate that would change the definition of a full-time employee from an average of 30 hours per work to 40 hours per week.  Rep. Todd Young (R-IN) introduced the house version, H.R. 2575, and a companion bill, S. 1188, was introduced by Senators Susan Collins (R-ME) and Joe Donnelly (D-IN).