If you run payroll in South Texas construction, the rules governing your workforce are shifting under your feet. This article breaks down what’s changing, what’s at stake, and why a ninety-minute briefing on July 9 could be the smartest compliance investment you make all year.

Key Takeaways

• July 9, 2026, 11:30 AM–1:00 PM at the ABC South Texas office (814 Arion Parkway, Suite 111, San Antonio, TX): the Labor Law Update 2026 Lunch & Learn delivers a construction-specific briefing on every major area of exposure – wage and hour, overtime classification, NLRB shifts, OSHA enforcement, immigration compliance, non-competes, and EEOC regulations.
• Federal and Texas labor laws impacting construction employers are in active flux. Courts have vacated overtime rules, ICE has reclassified I-9 errors as substantive violations, and the NLRB is invalidating common handbook language – all while penalties keep climbing.
• A single FLSA misclassification, recordkeeping failure, or outdated policy can trigger back pay liability, agency investigations, and litigation that erodes profit on an entire South Texas project.
• The session is built for owners, HR leaders, project managers, and field supervisors who personally carry hiring, payroll, and personnel risk on tight-margin jobs along the I-35 and I-10 corridors.
• Registration is $25 for ABC South Texas members and $40 for future members, available through the ABC South Texas events calendar; sponsorships are also available.

Why a Labor Law Update Matters Right Now for South Texas Construction

Employment law enforcement is not waiting for your next handbook revision. Going into the new year of 2026, federal agencies and Texas courts have delivered a rapid sequence of decisions, new requirements, and enforcement postures that directly hit commercial construction – an industry built on complex crews, layered subcontractors, multi-site operations, and a mobile workforce that crosses trade and jurisdictional lines daily.

The stakes are concrete. A single wage-and-hour misclassification – say, calling a working superintendent “exempt” when the duties test says otherwise – can trigger a Department of Labor investigation, collective action, and back-pay awards covering multiple years of hours worked. Add liquidated damages, attorneys’ fees, and the ripple effect across similar positions on other projects, and the exposure easily reaches six figures. For contractors operating on margins that leave little room for error, the difference between a profitable year and a catastrophic one is the margin.

Merit shop contractors depend on running clean, compliant operations. When competitors cut corners – through wage theft, misclassification, or ignoring safety regulations – they create unfair bidding pressure and draw regulatory scrutiny to the entire market. Staying current on labor law is not optional; it is a competitive discipline. This article and the July 9 Lunch & Learn aim to give South Texas construction leaders a current, actionable briefing so they can stay ahead of these changes rather than chasing them after an agency letter arrives.

Event Snapshot: ABC South Texas July Lunch & Learn – Labor Law Update 2026

ABC South Texas is hosting an in-person, construction-focused labor law update designed to cut through the noise and address the issues that matter most to contractors, subcontractors, and suppliers in our region.

The event – titled “July Lunch & Learn: Labor Law Update 2026” – takes place Thursday, July 9, 2026, from 11:30 AM to 1:00 PM at the ABC South Texas office, 814 Arion Parkway, Suite 111, San Antonio, TX 78216. The intended audience includes owners, executives, HR leaders, controllers, project managers, superintendents, and field supervisors with hiring, scheduling, and payment authority across South Texas projects. Pricing is $25 for ABC South Texas members and $40 for future members; lunch and materials are included. Registration is available through the ABC South Texas online event calendar, and limited sponsorships are available for companies seeking additional visibility among fellow contractors.

Meet the Presenter: Employer-Side Insight from Bob Kilgore

When the topic is management-side labor and employment law in Texas construction, you want someone who has spent decades in the trenches – not someone reading from a slide deck for the first time.

Bob Kilgore is Special Counsel at Gardner Law and serves as the ABC South Texas Chapter Attorney. He is Board Certified in Labor and Employment Law by the Texas Board of Legal Specialization and has spent nearly four decades defending Texas employers in proceedings before the NLRB, the EEOC, the U.S. Department of Labor, the Occupational Safety and Health Review Commission, and the Texas Workforce Commission. His practice covers FLSA overtime and classification disputes, non-compete and trade-secret litigation, ERISA and benefits plans, collective bargaining, and management training – all areas that commercial builders and subcontractors encounter routinely. Bob regularly conducts pay-practice audits, policy and handbook reviews, and supervisor training for Texas employers, and this session distills that experience into actionable guidance for ABC South Texas members.

Top 2025–2026 Wage and Hour Pressures: Minimum Wage, Overtime, Pay Transparency Laws, and Misclassification

Wage and hour compliance remains the highest-exposure area for South Texas construction businesses under federal labor standards and Texas enforcement. Here is why the landscape keeps shifting:

• Overtime rule vacated, appeals pending. In November 2024, a Texas federal court vacated the DOL’s rule that would have raised the salary threshold for exempt employees, finding the department overstepped by making salary alone determinative without proper duties tests. The DOL has appealed, meaning the legislation and its future remain unsettled. Contractors who reclassified workers in anticipation of those thresholds now find themselves in a gray zone.
• HCE exemption clarified. In Gilchrist v. Schlumberger (July 2025), the Fifth Circuit held that workers paid above the highly compensated employee threshold may qualify as exempt if they customarily perform administrative work – even for customers rather than internal operations. This court decision matters for estimators, project engineers, and field consultants.
• Misclassification stakes. The independent contractor versus employee question is acute in construction. Treating field crews, owner-operators, or small trade teams as 1099s when federal and state tests say otherwise generates massive back-pay liability. In one North Texas case, more than $1.5 million in back wages and damages was awarded to 430 HVAC technicians who were misclassified as independent contractors. The same pattern applies to gig drivers and other workers across industries, and the scrutiny extends to the construction industry.

Texas still sets its minimum wage at the federal floor of $7.25 per hour, but prevailing wage rates on public works contracts create additional obligations. Miscalculating an employee’s regular rate or failing to include required components when computing the regular rate of pay for overtime can trigger claims under applicable labor code section provisions and invite enforcement from the labor commissioner or the DOL’s Wage and Hour Division. Employers cannot afford to wait for clarity – they need to audit now.

Union Activity, National Labor Relations Act (NLRB) Shifts, and the Merit Shop Advantage

The National Labor Relations Act gives workers the right to engage in concerted activity, and NLRB decisions in 2024–2026 have broadened what that means for employers. The Board’s FY 2025 report shows 2,743 new cases, many involving nonunion employers, including construction firms whose handbook policies were deemed overbroad.

Common traps include confidentiality clauses that prevent discussing wages, social media restrictions that chill protected speech, and discipline policies that interfere with workers’ right to organize. The industrial relations landscape on multi-employer construction sites adds another layer: joint-employer theories can pull general contractors into liability for a subcontractor’s labor practices, and unions are targeting infrastructure projects along the I-35 and I-10 corridors with focused organizing efforts.

For merit shop contractors, clean labor relations practices are not just legal compliance – they are the foundation of fair, open competition and flexible, performance-based workplaces. Bob will walk attendees through recent NLRB developments and how to adjust policies without sacrificing management authority.

OSHA Enforcement and Construction Safety: Where Employment Law and Safety Intersect

OSHA enforcement is not just a safety issue – it is an employment law issue. Workers reporting safety concerns are protected from retaliation, and safety citations frequently travel with discrimination and whistleblower claims. When an injured worker files for workers’ compensation benefits and simultaneously alleges retaliation, the employer faces parallel investigations that compound costs far beyond a single citation.

The numbers in 2025 are sobering. OSHA conducted roughly 31,400 construction inspections and issued approximately $201 million in total penalties. Maximum fines for willful or repeat violations now reach $165,514 per instance, and the agency looks back five years when classifying repeat hazards. Fall protection, ladders, scaffolding, and PPE remain the most cited violations.

Bob will outline practical steps to tighten documentation, clarify responsible parties among GCs and subs, and train supervisors to respond lawfully when workers raise safety concerns – because how you address a complaint matters as much as whether the hazard existed.

Immigration Compliance: I-9, E-Verify, and a Mobile South Texas Workforce

Construction in South Texas depends on a mobile, often multilingual workforce that overlaps with agricultural workers and agricultural employers competing for the same labor pool. Immigration compliance is among the most sensitive – and most penalized – areas of employment law risk.

ICE has reclassified many I-9 errors previously considered “technical” as substantive violations, meaning missing dates of hire, employer titles, or rehire dates now trigger immediate fines upon inspection. The ICE-IRS data-sharing MOU allows bulk access to employer tax records to find status discrepancies, and reports indicate roughly one in three Texas construction contractors have been directly impacted by increased enforcement – through site shutdowns, worker shortages, or both.

When performing security verification of work authorization through I-9 or E-Verify, timing and consistency matter. Selective application of E-Verify, ignoring tentative nonconfirmations, or demanding additional documents creates exposure to discrimination on top of federal penalties. Even when a successful verification result is returned, improper procedures can still generate claims. Site-level supervisors often make the on-the-ground decisions – and without training, they may ask impermissible questions that trigger justice department scrutiny. Online government portals used for security verification also employ measures to screen out malicious bots; if the system flags unusual activity or asks users to respond to ID prompts, supervisors need to know those are standard security service protocols, not errors.

Bob will address how to centralize I-9 practices, audit existing files, and coach field leaders on what they can and cannot say.

Non-Competes, Trade Secrets, and Employee Mobility in 2026

The FTC abandoned its appeals of the now-blocked non-compete ban in September 2025 but continues using enforcement actions, warning letters, and information requests to target overly aggressive restrictive covenants. At the state level, Texas courts are increasingly scrutinizing broad non-competes – especially those applied to non-exempt or lower-level workers who pose no legitimate trade-secret risk.

For construction, this affects agreements with project managers, estimators, business development staff, and key foremen who move between competitors. The new law of the land is practical: protect legitimate trade secrets and confidential bid information through tailored non-disclosure provisions and operational controls rather than sweeping restrictions that a superior court or federal judge will void. Bob will discuss what a realistically enforceable post-employment restriction looks like in Texas today and how to update templates so they protect your funds and competitive position.

Harassment, Discrimination, and Retaliation: EEOC and Texas Trends

EEOC enforcement and private lawsuits remain a major cost driver. The Pregnant Workers Fairness Act requires employers with 15 or more employees to provide reasonable accommodations for known pregnancy-related limitations. Texas’s CROWN Act – effective September 1, 2023 – prohibits discrimination based on hair texture or protective hairstyles associated with race, meaning grooming policies need a comprehensive review. Emerging pay transparency laws and stricter scrutiny of severance agreement confidentiality clauses add further layers of compliance.

In construction, dispersed job sites, mixed crews, and reliance on text messages and radios make harassment harder to monitor and claims easier to substantiate. One finding of discrimination or retaliation can damage a contractor’s prequalification status and insurance profile, directly limiting the contractor’s eligible bid opportunities. Bob will highlight practical updates to anti-harassment policies, complaint channels, and investigation practices tailored for field-heavy workforces.

Handbooks, Policies, and Onboarding: What to Fix Before the Next Complaint

Many South Texas contractors still rely on handbooks drafted before recent shifts by the NLRB, EEOC, FLSA, and OSHA. Silent gaps and problematic clauses are exactly what plaintiffs’ lawyers and agencies target. Key areas to audit:

• Overtime approval and recording procedures
• Meal, rest, and travel-time practices
• Social media, personal device, and communication policies
• Safety reporting requirements and anti-retaliation language
• Complaint and investigation procedures
• Dress and grooming codes (CROWN Act compliance)

Inconsistent onboarding packets across branch offices or job sites – where some employed workers receive arbitration agreements and others do not – undermine defenses in later litigation. Aligning subcontractor agreements and jobsite orientation materials so all workers receive clear, consistent expectations is essential. Bob will walk attendees through a triage list of which handbook sections to fix first and what language to avoid.

Preparing Supervisors and Field Leaders: Your First Line of Defense

In construction, the real employment law decisions happen with superintendents, general foremen, and project managers – not just HR. Common missteps that create liability include:

• Allowing off-the-books hours to “help” workers avoid overtime caps
• Informal discipline without documentation
• Careless text messages that become exhibit A in a retaliation claim
• Reactive comments when workers discuss unions or safety

Front-line leaders need simple, repeatable guidance – not law-school lectures. A focused supervisor training program, reinforced by toolbox talks, can cut down on misclassification, retaliation, and overtime errors before they become claims. Attendees will leave with talking points and checklists they can use to brief their own foremen across current projects.

Action Plan: How to Audit Your Current Practices Before July 9

Treat the weeks before July 9 as a pre-audit window. Pull your current pay and classification lists, handbooks, onboarding packets, I-9 files, non-compete templates, and safety disciplinary forms. Run a spot check on a handful of projects – compare time sheets, pay stubs, job titles, and actual duties to confirm that exempt/non-exempt and employee/contractor statuses still hold up. Compile recent or pending issues – agency letters, employee complaints, union contacts, near-miss OSHA inspections – to raise during the Q&A. ABC South Texas members can also review the chapter’s advocacy page for additional information on the broader policy environment and ongoing efforts to keep the regulatory landscape fair for construction employers in the region.

Registration, Pricing, and Sponsorship Opportunities

Seats for the July 9 Labor Law Update Lunch & Learn are limited. Register early to comply with capacity limits and secure your spot. The event runs Thursday, July 9, 2026, from 11:30 AM to 1:00 PM at ABC South Texas, 814 Arion Parkway, Suite 111, San Antonio, TX, with lunch provided. Pricing is $25 per person for ABC South Texas members and $40 per person for future members – a fraction of the cost of even the smallest wage claim. Registration is handled through the ABC South Texas online events calendar. Event sponsorships are available for companies wanting visibility with a room full of South Texas construction leaders; contact the ABC South Texas staff for current benefits and availability.

Why a 90-Minute Briefing Beats a Six-Figure Claim

Consider the math. A single misclassified superintendent generating three years of back overtime at the employee’s regular rate, plus liquidated damages and defense costs, can easily produce a six-figure liability – on one position, on one project. Multiply that across a workforce, add an OSHA willful citation at $165,514, layer in an I-9 penalty and the project delays that follow a site enforcement action, and you are looking at exposure that dwarfs entire profit margins. Those are real numbers that contractors in California, Texas, and every other state face today.

Staying ahead of labor law is part of the merit shop advantage: clean operations, confident supervisors, predictable compensation costs, and a reputation that wins work. The statute of limitations on many of these claims means today’s practices create tomorrow’s liability.

Block your calendar for July 9, 2026. Register through the ABC South Texas event calendar today. Bring your managers. A ninety-minute investment in compliance is far cheaper than the claim it helps you enforce against – and far cheaper than the one it helps you avoid.

Frequently Asked Questions

Who should attend the Labor Law Update 2026 if we already have outside counsel?

The session is designed to complement, not replace, existing legal relationships. It translates current labor and employment law shifts into practical steps for owners, HR teams, project managers, and field supervisors – the people making day-to-day decisions that create or prevent liability. When internal decision-makers are up to speed, outside counsel can focus on higher-value strategy rather than constant fire drills, and your organization is better equipped to protect its interests in disputes.

Will the session address issues specific to subcontractors and multi-employer jobsites?

Yes. Examples and guidance will explicitly cover general contractors, specialty subcontractors, and suppliers working on multi-employer projects across South Texas. Topics like joint-employer risk, subcontractor labor practices, reporting labor law violations up the chain, and coordinating safety and HR expectations across tiers will be woven into the discussion.

Can I bring real scenarios or documents from my company to discuss?

Attendees are encouraged to bring anonymized examples – sample job descriptions, pay classifications, handbook clauses, or onboarding forms – to help frame questions. While the presenter cannot provide individualized legal advice in the room, he can flag patterns, common pitfalls, and options for follow-up review.

Will materials be provided so I can brief my supervisors afterward?

Attendees will receive slides or handouts summarizing key legal updates, checklists, and action items suitable for turning into internal briefings or toolbox talks. Plan a short internal debrief within a week of the event to cascade what you learn to project teams and field leaders.

How does this session fit with ABC South Texas’s broader advocacy and compliance support?

The Lunch & Learn is part of ABC South Texas’s ongoing regulatory and advocacy work on behalf of merit shop contractors, including monitoring developments in labor standards and engaging with policymakers. Visit the chapter’s advocacy page to see how ABC South Texas is working to keep the regulatory environment fair and predictable for construction employers in the region.