It is no secret that whenever there is a change in the Oval Office it is common for the incoming administration to implement quick and widespread changes to effectuate campaign promises. Indeed, in modern times, newly elected...more
1/31/2025
/ Department of Education ,
Educational Institutions ,
Employment Discrimination ,
Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) ,
Executive Orders ,
Federal Funding ,
Gender Identity ,
NLRB ,
Presidential Appointments ,
Regulatory Agenda ,
Title VII ,
Trump Administration
In the evening hours of Monday, January 27, 2025, President Donald Trump fired National Labor Relations Board (“NLRB”) General Counsel Jennifer Abruzzo and Democratic Board member Gwynne Wilcox. While the termination of...more
The new year is ushering in notable changes to the Illinois Human Rights Act (IHRA), and with it, significant implications for employers. As of January 1, 2025, employers in Illinois may not discriminate against their...more
1/8/2025
/ Anti-Discrimination Policies ,
Employee Rights ,
Employer Responsibilities ,
Employment Discrimination ,
Employment Policies ,
Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) ,
Family Status Discrimination ,
Human Rights ,
Illinois ,
New Legislation ,
Reproductive Healthcare Issues ,
Statute of Limitations
Beginning January 1, 2025, Illinois employers with 15 or more employees will be required to comply with new pay transparency requirements under an amendment to the Illinois Equal Pay Act. We will be exploring the requirements...more
The new pay transparency requirements under the Illinois Equal Pay Act apply to all employers with 15 or more employees. This figure includes all employees, full- or part-time, within or outside of Illinois....more
It took a few months, but in a ruling that should surprise no one, a federal judge in Texas has blocked the U.S. Department of Labor’s new overtime exemption rule that increased the minimum salaries for workers to be...more
On August 23, 2024, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals struck down a 2021 regulation by the U.S. Department of Labor restricting employers’ use of the tip credit for tipped employees under the Fair Labor Standards Act. The...more
Many employers make the mistake of assuming that employees can be treated as exempt so long as they have certain job titles or are paid a salary rather than an hourly wage. That error is especially common in small businesses...more
After a federal judge in the Eastern District of Texas blocked the DOL’s new overtime exemption rule as it pertains to Texas state employees, another judge in the Northern District of Texas declined to issue a similar...more
7/3/2024
/ Department of Labor (DOL) ,
Employer Liability Issues ,
Exempt-Employees ,
Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) ,
Federal Labor Laws ,
Final Rules ,
Highly Compensated Employees ,
Labor Reform ,
Minimum Salary ,
Non-Exempt Employees ,
Over-Time ,
Salaried Employees ,
Unpaid Overtime ,
Wage and Hour ,
White-Collar Exemptions
On Friday, a federal district court granted a preliminary injunction sought by the State of Texas to block implementation of the U.S. Department of Labor’s new rule increasing minimum salaries for overtime exempt employee....more
With the DOL’s new overtime exemption rule set to go into effect on July 1 and no ruling yet on the state of Texas’s motion to put the rule on hold, employers will need to decide what to do with exempt employees whose minimum...more
The clock is quickly ticking down to July 1, when the U.S. Department of Labor’s new rule increasing the minimum salary for many employees to be considered exempt from overtime under the Fair Labor Standards Act is supposed...more
6/26/2024
/ Deadlines ,
Department of Labor (DOL) ,
Employer Liability Issues ,
Exempt-Employees ,
Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) ,
Federal Labor Laws ,
Final Rules ,
Highly Compensated Employees ,
Labor Reform ,
Minimum Salary ,
Non-Exempt Employees ,
Over-Time ,
Popular ,
Salaried Employees ,
Unpaid Overtime ,
Wage and Hour ,
White-Collar Exemptions
In a recent decision, Muldrow v. City of St. Louis, the U.S. Supreme Court clarified the standard for determining whether an adverse employment action is a sufficient basis for a discrimination claim under Title VII of the...more
6/10/2024
/ Adverse Employment Action ,
Civil Rights Act ,
Employee Transfers ,
Employer Liability Issues ,
Employment Litigation ,
Gender Discrimination ,
Hiring & Firing ,
Lateral Transfers ,
Muldrow v City of St Louis ,
SCOTUS ,
Sex Discrimination ,
Title VII
Earlier this month, the Chicago Department of Business Affairs and Consumer Protection published the final rules supporting Chicago’s new Paid Leave and Paid Sick and Safe Leave Ordinance. Both the ordinance and the rules go...more
A common question for schools assessing how to comply with the new overtime exemption rule published by the U.S. DOL is what to do about coaches and athletic trainers in light of the new minimum salary requirement for the...more
5/14/2024
/ Coaches ,
Department of Labor (DOL) ,
Educational Institutions ,
Employer Liability Issues ,
Exempt-Employees ,
Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) ,
Federal Labor Laws ,
Final Rules ,
Highly Compensated Employees ,
Labor Reform ,
Minimum Salary ,
Non-Exempt Employees ,
Over-Time ,
Salaried Employees ,
Sports ,
Wage and Hour ,
White-Collar Exemptions
In April, the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) released two long-awaited final documents aimed at strengthening worker protections: the final rule implementing the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act (PWFA, or...more
5/8/2024
/ Civil Rights Act ,
Employee Rights ,
Employees ,
Employer Liability Issues ,
Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) ,
Federal Labor Laws ,
Final Rules ,
Labor Reform ,
Pregnancy ,
Pregnancy Discrimination ,
Pregnant Workers Fairness Act ,
Reasonable Accommodation ,
Title VII ,
Workplace Harassment Guidance
The U.S. Department of Labor recently published new final regulations that increase the minimum salary level for most employees to be considered exempt under the executive, administrative, and professional exemptions to the...more
On April 23, 2024, the U.S. Department of Labor issued final regulations updating the minimum salary threshold for employees to be considered exempt from overtime requirements under the Fair Labor Standards Act. The...more
On March 14, 2024, the Cook County Board of Commissioners passed an amendment to the new Cook County Paid Leave Ordinance and approved the final draft of proposed rules under the Ordinance. The new amendment, effective...more
On January 9, 2024, the U.S. Department of Labor announced a new final rule revising the test for whether workers are considered to be employees versus independent contractors for purposes of the Fair Labor Standards Act. The...more
1/10/2024
/ Department of Labor (DOL) ,
Economic Realities Test ,
Employee Definition ,
Employer Liability Issues ,
Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) ,
Federal Labor Laws ,
Final Rules ,
Freelance Workers ,
Gig Economy ,
Hiring & Firing ,
Independent Contractors ,
Labor Reform ,
Misclassification ,
Over-Time ,
Wage and Hour
In November 2023, the Chicago City Council passed the Chicago Paid Leave and Paid Sick and Safe Leave Ordinance, dramatically expanding the city’s existing paid sick leave ordinance to require employers to provide an...more
Earlier this month, the EEOC released proposed regulations to implement the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act (“PWFA,” or the “Act”), which we initially wrote about. (The proposed rule can be found on the Federal Register’s...more
8/30/2023
/ Breastfeeding ,
Comment Period ,
Employee Rights ,
Employees ,
Employer Liability Issues ,
Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) ,
Federal Labor Laws ,
Labor Reform ,
Pregnancy ,
Pregnancy Discrimination ,
Pregnant Workers Fairness Act ,
Proposed Regulation ,
Providing Urgent Maternal Protections for Nursing Mothers Act (“PUMP Act”) ,
Reasonable Accommodation
Under a new amendment to the Illinois Day and Temporary Labor Services Act, Illinois employers and staffing agencies will be required to provide temporary workers pay and benefits equal to certain directly-hired employees...more
In Groff v. DeJoy, Postmaster General, a unanimous U.S. Supreme Court set aside nearly five decades of precedent holding that an employer could deny an employee’s request for a religious accommodation under Title VII if the...more
In April, the Illinois Department of Labor published new regulations regarding the expense reimbursement requirements in Section 9.5 of the Illinois Wage Payment and Collection Act. The Act requires an employer to reimburse...more
5/3/2023
/ Business Expenses ,
Employees ,
Employer Liability Issues ,
Employment Policies ,
Illinois ,
Labor Reform ,
New Regulations ,
Regulatory Requirements ,
Reimbursements ,
State Labor Laws ,
Wage and Hour