We have written extensively on mandatory vaccination policies and employers’ obligations to accommodate requests for exemption based on religious or disability grounds. The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals has issued a recent...more
By February 1, 2020, District of Columbia (“DC”) employers must start providing employees with notice of the DC Paid Family Leave (“DC PFL”) law, D.C. Code § 32-541.01, et seq. The DC PFL Notice to Employees (“PFL Notice”)...more
1/17/2020
/ Employee Benefits ,
Employer Liability Issues ,
Employment Policies ,
Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) ,
Final Rules ,
Medical Leave ,
New Legislation ,
Paid Family Leave Law ,
Paid Leave ,
State Labor Laws ,
Unemployment Insurance ,
Wage and Hour
As we have previously blogged, use of third-party digital hiring platforms to select job applicants using video interviews can present an array of potential legal issues. A recent Complaint filed with the Federal Trade...more
1/9/2020
/ Antitrust Provisions ,
Artificial Intelligence ,
Corporate Counsel ,
Decision-Making Process ,
Disability Discrimination ,
Due Diligence ,
Employer Liability Issues ,
Entrance Interviews ,
Facial Recognition Technology ,
Federal Trade Commission (FTC) ,
Hiring & Firing ,
Job Applicants ,
Race Discrimination ,
Racial Bias ,
Recruitment Policies ,
Risk Mitigation ,
Section 5 ,
Software ,
Technology ,
Video Recordings
With 2019 nearly rolled up, it is time to exhale and recap the latest dose of marijuana laws affecting the workplace. In the last twelve months, Illinois became the eleventh state to legalize recreational marijuana use by...more
12/24/2019
/ Corporate Counsel ,
Decriminalization of Marijuana ,
Employer Liability Issues ,
Employment Policies ,
Financial Services Industry ,
Hiring & Firing ,
Legislative Agendas ,
Marijuana ,
Medical Marijuana ,
New Legislation ,
Policies and Procedures ,
Recreational Use ,
State and Local Government
Increasingly, companies are using third-party digital hiring platforms to recruit and select job applicants. These products, explicitly or implicitly, promise to reduce or eliminate the bias of hiring managers in making...more
10/17/2019
/ Artificial Intelligence ,
Biometric Information Privacy Act ,
Data Collection ,
Data Retention ,
Disability Discrimination ,
Employer Liability Issues ,
Governor Pritzker ,
Hiring & Firing ,
Human Resources Professionals ,
Interviews ,
Job Applicants ,
New Legislation ,
Reasonable Accommodation ,
Recruitment Policies ,
State Labor Laws ,
Videoconference
As summer winds down, the challenges impacting health care employers in 2019 continue to heat up. These challenges include ongoing developments regarding marijuana legalization, employee resistance to vaccination mandates,...more
8/30/2019
/ Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) ,
Decriminalization of Marijuana ,
Drug Testing ,
Employer Liability Issues ,
Health Insurance ,
Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) ,
Healthcare ,
Healthcare Workers ,
Individual Mandate ,
Marijuana ,
OSHA ,
Tax Cuts and Jobs Act ,
Workplace Safety ,
Workplace Violence
On July 2, 2019, New Jersey joined Illinois, Nevada, New Mexico, New York City, and Oklahoma in enacting employment protections for authorized users of medical cannabis. New Jersey’s new medical cannabis law (“Law”), which...more
7/11/2019
/ Adverse Employment Action ,
Amended Legislation ,
Anti-Discrimination Policies ,
Drug Testing ,
Employee Rights ,
Employer Liability Issues ,
Employment Policies ,
Governor Murphy ,
Hiring & Firing ,
Marijuana ,
Medical Marijuana ,
Reasonable Accommodation ,
State Labor Laws
The District of Columbia Office of Paid Family Leave (“OPFL”) recently launched a website to help employers and employees prepare for the new Paid Family Leave (“PFL”) benefit. On July 1, 2019, the OPFL will begin collecting...more
On April 9, 2019, a proposed bill, Int. 1445-A (“Bill”), which prohibits employers from pre-employment drug testing for marijuana and tetrahydrocannabinols (“THC,” the active ingredient in marijuana), was passed by the New...more
4/17/2019
/ Collective Bargaining Agreements (CBA) ,
Department of Transportation (DOT) ,
Drug Testing ,
Drug-Free Workplace Act ,
Employer Liability Issues ,
Employment Policies ,
Federal Contractors ,
Hiring & Firing ,
Job Applicants ,
Marijuana ,
Mayor de Blasio ,
OSHA
In a decision that could have sweeping effects on New Jersey employers with drug-free workplace and drug-testing policies, the New Jersey Appellate Division in Wild v. Carriage Funeral Holdings ruled that the New Jersey Law...more
Technology, media, and telecommunications organizations are at the forefront of tackling new challenges in handling employee information and managing employee populations. As legislatures (from the federal level down to...more
3/26/2019
/ #MeToo ,
Cybersecurity ,
Data Protection ,
Digital Media ,
Employer Liability Issues ,
General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) ,
Human Resources Professionals ,
Over-Time ,
Sexual Harassment ,
Telecommunications ,
Unions ,
Wage and Hour ,
White-Collar Exemptions
After nearly 16 years of legislative efforts, the New York State Legislature passed the Gender Expression Non-Discrimination Act (“GENDA” or “Law”), explicitly adding “gender identity or expression” as a protected class under...more
Recent headlines have highlighted changes occurring in the workforce. Generation Z will be entering the workforce in the new year, marking five generations working side by side. Therefore, as 2019 approaches, it will be...more
12/28/2018
/ #MeToo ,
Bias ,
Corporate Culture ,
Decriminalization of Marijuana ,
Employee Training ,
Employer Liability Issues ,
Employment Policies ,
Gender Discrimination ,
Gender Identity ,
Hostile Environment ,
NYCHRL ,
Pay Equity Laws ,
Sexual Harassment ,
State Labor Laws
There is a visceral and palpable dynamic emerging in global workplaces: tension.
Tension between what is potentially knowable—and what is actually known. Tension between the present and the future state of work. Tension...more
On August 29, 2018, Delaware Governor John Carney signed into law House Bill 360 (“Law”), adding Delaware to the already significant list of states that have recently enacted laws expanding workplace protections against...more
On May 15, 2018, Maryland Governor Lawrence Hogan approved new legislation intended to respond to the #MeToo movement. Effective October 1, 2018, the “Disclosing Sexual Harassment in the Workplace Act of 2018” (“Act”)...more
7/31/2018
/ #MeToo ,
Arbitration ,
Commission on Human Rights ,
Data Collection ,
Disclosure ,
Employer Liability Issues ,
Employment Contract ,
Federal Arbitration Act ,
Governor Hogan ,
Mandatory Arbitration Clauses ,
NLRA ,
Preemption ,
Retaliation ,
Sexual Harassment
Employers in the health care industry are dealing with a growing number of employment law challenges. In this edition of Take 5, we identify the key issues confronting health care employers and discuss how to manage these...more
7/2/2018
/ Acquisitions ,
Due Diligence ,
Employee Training ,
Employer Liability Issues ,
False Claims Act (FCA) ,
General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) ,
Health Care Providers ,
Healthcare Facilities ,
Mergers ,
Misclassification ,
OSHA ,
Pay Equity Laws ,
Policies and Procedures ,
Resignation ,
Restrictive Covenants ,
Retaliation ,
Workplace Violence
Addressing Workplace Sexual Harassment in the Wake of #MeToo -
Revelations of the Harvey Weinstein scandal, and those that have followed, have ignited sexual harassment complaints against employers across all industries....more
12/27/2017
/ Arbitration Agreements ,
Class Action Arbitration Waivers ,
Cybersecurity ,
Department of Labor (DOL) ,
Employer Liability Issues ,
Employment Policies ,
Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) ,
Equal Pay ,
Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) ,
Harassment ,
Minimum Salary ,
Paid Leave ,
Popular ,
Private Attorneys General Act (PAGA) ,
Sexual Harassment ,
Wage and Hour ,
White-Collar Exemptions
Five Issues in Focus for Financial Services -
For this edition of the Take 5 for financial services, we focus on a number of very well-publicized issues. The tidal wave of sexual harassment allegations that followed the...more
11/29/2017
/ Employer Liability Issues ,
Executive Compensation ,
Financial Services Industry ,
Hiring & Firing ,
Human Resources Professionals ,
Pay Gap ,
Pay Ratio ,
Political Speech ,
Risk Management ,
Salary/Wage History ,
Sexual Harassment ,
Trade Secrets
Almost ten months into the Trump Administration, the executive and legislative branches have been preoccupied with attempting to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act (“ACA”) – but each attempt has thus far proved...more
11/1/2017
/ Affordable Care Act ,
Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) ,
Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA) ,
Employer Liability Issues ,
Gender Identity ,
Health Care Providers ,
Health Insurance ,
Interactive Process ,
Non-Discrimination Rules ,
Restrictive Covenants ,
Section 1557 ,
Sexual Orientation Discrimination
The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (“EEOC”) opened its doors on July 2, 1965, exactly one year after President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Title VII of that act (“Title VII”) prohibits...more
6/23/2015
/ Background Checks ,
Corporate Counsel ,
Criminal Background Checks ,
Discrimination ,
EEOC v Abercrombie ,
Employer Liability Issues ,
Enforcement Actions ,
Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) ,
Equal Pay ,
Gender Discrimination ,
Gender-Based Pay Discrimination ,
Hiring & Firing ,
LGBTQ ,
Popular ,
Religious Discrimination ,
Strategic Enforcement Plan ,
Title VII ,
Transgender ,
Young Lawyers
In a case that has implications for every employer and respondent on each charge in which the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (“EEOC”) finds reasonable cause to support the allegations, the U.S. Supreme Court...more