Quick Hits On August 19, 2024, Cal/OSHA will hold an advisory committee meeting to solicit input on proposed rules on enterprise-wide and egregious violations on employee safety and health requirements. The California Department of Industrial Relations plans to amend the existing framework for citation classification and penalty calculations to accommodate…
Quick Hits Before an election, employers may want to take several measures to navigate potential workplace tensions, such as establishing clear guidelines that outline when and where political paraphernalia can be worn, the ground rules for appropriate workplace political discussions, the limitations on political speech in the workplace including bumper…
Quick Hits Federal district courts in Kansas and Texas issued preliminary injunctions blocking enforcement of the U.S. Department of Education’s new Title IX regulations against the states of Alaska, Kansas, Texas, Utah, and Wyoming. The courts held that the Department of Education did not have the authority to interpret Title…
Quick Hits An advocacy organization recently submitted signatures to put forth a ballot measure to raise the state minimum wage to $18 per hour. Arizona voters will decide a separate ballot measure to alter way the minimum wage is calculated for tipped workers. If passed by voters, both measures would…
Quick Hits Louisiana’s Act No. 556 allows employers to establish policies concerning when an employee earns a commission, incentive payment, or bonus. Examples include adjusting such compensation where the employer does not receive payment from a customer and adjusting commissions when there is a change order. Act No. 556 extends…
Quick Hits Employers doing business in Philadelphia will want to be aware of several key employment-specific ordinances—including laws governing fair criminal record screening standards (“ban the box”), sick leave benefits, predictive scheduling, pre-employment drug testing, and transit benefits—that provide rights and protections for employees and compliance responsibilities for employers in…
Quick Hits California’s governor recently signed two bills to reform PAGA to enable workers to sue their employers or former employers over California Labor Code violations. The new legislation caps penalties on employers that “quickly take steps to fix policies and practices, and make workers whole, after receiving a PAGA…
Quick Hits Mexico’s Human Trafficking Law has been amended to define overtime work generated beyond legal limits as a form of labor exploitation. When overtime is generated, employers will have to pay for it and may be liable for fines and penalties. The Human Trafficking Law establishes a penalty of…
Quick Hits The employer had not engaged in “meaningful consultation” with the employee, rendering the dismissal “procedurally unfair.” A fair redundancy process requires that employers adhere to a thoughtful and well-documented pooling and consultation process, which includes clear communication with affected employees. Background Zubair Valimulla worked for Al-Khair Foundation as…
Quick Hits Workers in Rhode Island will receive up to seven weeks of paid time off to bond with a new child or care for a sick family member in 2025. That number will increase to eight weeks in 2026. Domestic workers are now eligible for minimum wage and overtime…
Quick Hits Minnesota’s new ban on the use of nonsolicitation agreements by service providers or staffing agencies takes effect on July 1, 2024. The law will prohibit service providers from restricting in any way its employees from being solicited or hired by user companies. The law will render such provisions…
Quick Hits The Superior Court of Arizona ruled Arizona municipalities cannot set prevailing wage ordinances. The court struck down prevailing wage ordinances enacted by Phoenix and Tucson affecting construction contractors. On June 21, 2024, the Superior Court of Arizona Maricopa County ruled in favor of three trade associations challenging the…
Quick Hits Act No. 273 modifies La. Rev. Stat. § 23:921, Louisiana’s noncompete statute, to limit the noncompete restrictions allowed in contracts with physicians. Any contract that restrains a primary care physician from practicing medicine expires three years after the effective date of the contract and all other physicians five…
Quick Hits Act No. 273 modifies La. Rev. Stat. § 23:921, Louisiana’s noncompete statute, to limit the noncompete restrictions allowed in contracts with physicians. Any contract that restrains a primary care physician from practicing medicine expires three years after the effective date of the contract and all other physicians five…
Quick Hits On June 21, 2024, two bills were introduced in the California Legislature to reform PAGA, which could provide a measure of relief to California employers and much-needed increased court oversight. Notably, the proposed amendments would allow an employee to bring PAGA claims only for Labor Code violations the…
Quick Hits Following the lead of California, Colorado, Hawaii, New York, Washington, and the District of Columbia, Maryland’s Equal Pay for Equal Work – Wage Range Transparency Act will require employers to disclose certain wage information in both public and internal job postings. The law was signed into law by…
Quick Hits The Oregon Bureau of Labor and Industries issued a proposed rule that would impose new requirements for employers responding to allegations of harassment. The proposal introduced five factors for evaluating what constitutes “appropriate corrective action” and “promptly correcting harassing behavior.” Currently, determining whether an employer took an appropriate…
Quick Hits Federal district courts in Kentucky and Louisiana have issued injunctions blocking the implementation and enforcement of the U.S. Department of Education’s new Title IX regulations in ten states. The U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Kentucky held that the U.S. Department of Education had exceeded its…
Quick Hits A California appellate court found an employer’s arbitration agreement with an eyewear store employee to be unenforceable for being both procedurally and substantively unconscionable. The appellate court noted several issues with the arbitration agreement—including finding that it was a contract of adhesion—that placed it “high on the scale…
Quick Hits Governor Pritzker is expected to sign SB3650, legislation amending Illinois’s Day and Temporary Labor Services Act (DTLSA). Third-party clients would not be required to provide comparator pay information until the worker has worked for the same third-party client for more than 720 hours within a twelve-month period and…
Quick Hits As part of a proposed consent judgment to resolve an antitrust charge brought by the DOJ and several states, the NCAA agreed to drop its rule requiring certain Division I college athletes who transfer schools to sit out a year. The DOJ and the states alleged that the…
Quick Hits Effective July 1, 2024, Senate Bill (SB) No. 553 will require virtually every California employer to implement a comprehensive workplace violence prevention plan. The new law does not have an implementation grace period. The new law applies to most California employers and employees, except corrections facilities, law enforcement…
Quick Hits On June 7, 2024, OFCCP published a CSAL that identified 500 establishments of federal supply and service contractors and subcontractors for compliance reviews. The CSAL operates as a “courtesy notification” to a contractor that an OFCCP compliance review will be undertaken; the compliance review process begins when the…
Quick Hits Minnesota Governor Walz signed employment-related legislation that amends laws addressing consumer data privacy, drug and alcohol or cannabis testing, employee misclassification, pay transparency, and restrictive covenants. Leave-related provisions address earned sick and safe time, paid family and medical leave, pregnancy accommodations, and parental leave. Wage- and pay-related legislation…
Quick Hits New Singaporean employment laws are in effect or will take effect this year. A new law extends the paid paternity leave benefit for two additional weeks, bringing the new leave allotment to four weeks of paid paternity leave. Singapore’s proposed Workplace Fairness Legislation, scheduled for passage in the…
Quick Hits The New York State Assembly has passed and delivered the Retail Worker Safety Act to the state Senate. Under the legislation, retail employers would be required to have written workplace violence prevention programs and workplace violence training. Retail employers with 500 or more employees nationwide would also be…
Quick Hits The California Civil Rights Department released new proposed regulations for employers’ use of AI and automated decision-making systems. The proposed regulations would affirm that employers’ use of such hiring technologies may violate the state’s antidiscrimination laws and clarify limits on the use of such technology in criminal background…
Quick Hits Beginning July 1, 2024, nearly all recruiters and temporary help agencies working with businesses or candidates in Ontario will be required to have a licence, even if the recruiters and temporary help agencies are not located in Ontario. THAs and recruiters that apply by June 30, 2024, may…
Quick Hits Starting July 1, 2024, a new California law, SB 478, will prohibit businesses from adding automatic service charges onto consumer bills. Other states and federal agencies may soon restrict, or prohibit, businesses from using automatic service charges. California Governor Gavin Newsom signed Senate Bill (SB) No. 478 into…
Quick Hits The Maine Department of Labor issued proposed rules for the state’s Paid Family and Medical Leave Program, providing employers with initial clarification regarding covered employees, contribution amounts, substitution of private plans, and other facets of the law. The public comment period for the proposed rules is open through…
Quick Hits Maryland’s HB 1388 imposes greater restrictions on Maryland employers entering noncompete and conflict of interest agreements with both health care and veterinary professionals. HB 1388 prohibits restrictions for certain employees who are required to be licensed under the Health Occupations Article and certain employees who are licensed as…
Quick Hits The Illinois legislature passed SB2979 to clarify that multiple alleged collections or disseminations of an individual’s biometrics constitute only a single violation of the Privacy Act and the individual is limited to only one recovery of statutory damages. Once signed, the bill will reverse a holding by the…
Quick Hits The DOL is enforcing child labor laws through two key mechanisms: (1) preventing employers from shipping or profiting from “hot goods” and (2) assessing aggregate civil money penalties. An August 2023 DOL field assistance bulletin advises field agents on identifying violations of “oppressive child labor” and applying the…
Quick Hits With Governor Jared Polis’s signing into law SB 24-205, Colorado becomes the first U.S. state to enact comprehensive legislation regulating the use and development of AI systems. The law addresses, among other things, the risk of algorithmic discrimination “arising from the intended and contracted uses of … high-risk…
Quick Hits The Supreme Court held that Section 3 of the FAA requires federal courts to grant stays of lawsuits after claims are sent to arbitration, if a stay is requested. The ruling resolves a 6–4 circuit split regarding whether federal district courts must stay lawsuits pending arbitration or whether…
Quick Hits OFCCP released its first detailed guidance on federal contractors’ use of AI and automated systems. The guidance instructs federal contractors to routinely monitor whether AI and automated systems have a disparate or adverse impact on protected groups and take actions to reduce those impacts or use different tools.…
Quick Hits The New Jersey Supreme Court invalidated an otherwise valid settlement agreement solely because the agreement contained a “non-disparagement provision,” the scope of which the court found “would bar individuals from describing an employer’s discriminatory conduct” in violation of NJLAD. The court held that the non-disparagement provision was broad…
Quick Hits June 2, 2024, and October 1, 2024, are mandatory holidays due to federal elections in Mexico and the presidential inauguration day. Employees who work on mandatory holidays are entitled to two times their daily wage in addition to their normal salary for that day. Employers must respect and…
Current LawExpansion Under Public Act No. 24-8 Effective January 1, 2025 (Unless Otherwise Noted)Covered EmployeesThe current law applies to “service workers,” who are defined as employees in certain occupations identified in the U.S Bureau of Labor Statistics’ Standard Occupational Classification system.The expanded law applies to all employees, including seasonal employees…
Quick Hits The EB-1 and EB-2 final action dates remain unchanged for all countries of chargeability. The EB-3 final action date for India retrogressed eight days, while all other countries of chargeability remain unchanged. USCIS has confirmed it will accept employment-based adjustment of status applications based on the final action…