Five Ward and Smith attorneys offered timely updates on religious accommodations, professional licensing, pregnancy laws, remote work, and independent contractor rules during the firm’s recent annual Employment Law...more
10/27/2023
/ Employees ,
Employer Liability Issues ,
Employment Discrimination ,
Independent Contractors ,
Labor Reform ,
Licensing Rules ,
Pregnancy ,
Pregnancy Discrimination ,
Pregnant Workers Fairness Act ,
Providing Urgent Maternal Protections for Nursing Mothers Act (“PUMP Act”) ,
Reasonable Accommodation ,
Regulatory Agenda ,
Regulatory Requirements ,
Religious Accommodation ,
Remote Working
The U.S. Supreme Court, in a unanimous opinion issued yesterday in Groff vs. Dejoy, changed the standard that most employers must consider and apply when deciding how to deal with – and when they may lawfully reject –...more
The National Labor Relations Board ("NLRB") has recently declared a limit on parties' contractual rights that many private employers (and, for that matter many, of their employees) may find distressing. ...more
The employer/employee relationship is among the most regulated.
There are many (some argue too many) federal and state laws that govern how employers may and may not treat applicants and employees....more
Employers, it seems, can't catch a break these days.
They build businesses. They take risks. They face increasing supply costs, supply-chain problems, interest rates, and staff-shortages...more
You may understandably think that everything about this subject has been resolved long ago. But you would be wrong if you do. The federal law that undergirds most of what you think you know about how employers have to pay...more
Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. observed that democracy is messy and hard.
The serial legal battle over COVID-19 and what the federal government can and should make employers do about it illustrates the point. ...more
Litigation usually proceeds at a maddeningly glacial pace. Not this time.
The Past - The Occupational Safety and Health Administration's ("OSHA") well-publicized and controversial Emergency Temporary Standard ("ETS") was...more
11/17/2021
/ Coronavirus/COVID-19 ,
Employer Liability Issues ,
Employer Mandates ,
Health and Safety ,
Infectious Diseases ,
Masks ,
OSHA ,
Preliminary Injunctions ,
Vaccinations ,
Virus Testing ,
Workplace Safety
It's a case of "Get Ready, Get Set … Wait! -
On Saturday, November 6, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, in response to a lawsuit filed last Friday by various plaintiffs including the Attorney General of...more
Good (and Not So Good) Things Come to Those Who Wait -
Yesterday, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration ("OSHA") of the U.S. Department of Labor ("DOL"), at long last, issued an "Interim final rule" regarding...more
No good deed goes unpunished -
Little did City of Durham Police Sergeant Michael Mole' know, in his first crack at negotiating on his own the surrender of an armed and barricaded suspect, that he would be fired because he...more
Arbitrary judgments are as old as humanity itself. Law evolved in part to try to spare us all from some of them and provide order and predictability in their place. That evolution, and occasional revolution, eventually gave...more
The federal "Families First Coronavirus Response Act of 2020" ("FFCRA" or the "Act") became law on March 18, 2020. It was enacted into law the way in which all federal statutes are: it was adopted by Congress and then...more
The Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 ("FLSA"), for decades, has permitted employers to pay some workers a lower minimum hourly wage than would otherwise be due if the workers receive at least a minimum amount per month in the...more
2/28/2020
/ Consolidated Appropriations Act (CAA) ,
Department of Labor (DOL) ,
Employer Liability Issues ,
Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) ,
Hospitality Industry ,
Minimum Wage ,
NPRM ,
Proposed Rules ,
Regulatory Reform ,
Tip Credit ,
Tip-Pooling ,
Tipped Employees ,
Tips ,
Wage and Hour
How does the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission evaluate discrimination complaints?
What trends is it seeing in the cases it’s reviewing? And how do investigators assess claims involving sexual harassment and equal...more
Employers in agribusiness face the same risks as those in any other business, but perhaps more than most if faced with frequent employee-turnover and employees with little loyalty to those for whom they work....more
3/19/2019
/ Agribusiness ,
Agricultural Workers ,
Anti-Harassment Policies ,
Department of Labor (DOL) ,
Employee Training ,
Employer Liability Issues ,
Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) ,
Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) ,
Farm Workers ,
Misclassification ,
Title VII ,
Wage and Hour
Everyone was having such a good time, too . . .
The company was hosting its annual holiday party. The company had arranged to hold the event that Saturday night in a hotel ballroom. Moods were festive, especially because...more
Background -
On January 10, 2017, the United States Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (the "EEOC") did employers a favor. It released "a proposed enforcement guidance addressing unlawful harassment under the...more
On October 7, 2016, the General Counsel of the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission ("EEOC"), P. David Lopez, presented "The EEOC's Top Ten Litigation Developments" at an employment law symposium sponsored by Ward and...more
About a year ago, the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit held in Cruz v. Maypa, 773 F.3d 138 (4th Cir. 2014), a decision that has received little attention, that an employer covered by the Fair Labor...more