Employment, Labor & Benefits

The New York City Council recently passed a bill that will require employers to grant two temporary schedule changes per calendar year to employees for qualifying “personal events.” The law will take effect on July 18, 2018 and will add to the increasingly complex obligations of employers to track and respond to employee leave requests.

Join me and a panel of corporate counsel and human resources professionals to discuss the #MeToo movement and its impact on the HR function at Mintz Fourth Annual Employment Law Summit in New York City on April 19, 2018.

The contraceptive mandate, one of the more controversial provisions of the Affordable Care Act, continues to make news as various stakeholders duke it out in and out of court.

In a March 15, 2018 Law360 article, Mintz Levin Employment, Labor and Benefits practice leader Michael Arnold discusses the intersection between March Madness and employment law.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit ruled on March 7 that employer R.G. & G.R. Harris Funeral Homes unlawfully discriminated on the basis of sex when it fired a transgender employee after she informed the company that she would begin presenting consistent with her gender identity.

On March 6, 2018, the U.S. Department of Labor (“DOL”) announced a new pilot program, the Payroll Audit Independent Determination (“PAID”) program, which encourages employers to self-report inadvertent overtime and minimum wage violations under the Fair Labor Standards Act (“FLSA”).

Phew - it has been a whirlwind of a month in the employment law world! Just in time for spring, new laws are popping up like crocuses just about everywhere we turn.

Austin, Texas recently became the first municipality in the South to enact a paid sick and safe leave law for private sector employees.  The sick and safe leave ordinance will take effect on October 1, 2018 for employers with five or more employees.

On Monday, for the second time in less than a year, a federal appeals court ruled that Title VII forbids sexual orientation discrimination because it is a form of sex discrimination.

On April 19, 2018, Mintz will be hosting its Fourth Annual Employment Law Summit at the Princeton Club in New York City. This half-day seminar will feature as its keynote speaker Kevin Berry, the District Director of the EEOC’s New York District Office.

On Wednesday this week, all nine justices agreed that the Dodd-Frank Act’s anti-retaliation provision does not extend to an individual who has not reported a violation of the securities laws to the Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”).  In other words, making only internal complaints does not shroud an employee in whistleblower protection under the Dodd-Frank Act.

In advance of issuing the Executive Order that culminated in the promulgation by the Department of Labor of proposed regulations expanding the availability of Association Health Plans, President Trump announced that one of the purposes of the order was to allow people to buy health insurance “across state lines.”

Mintz Levin Benefits attorney Patricia Moran recently published an article in SHRM describing the cybersecurity risks involved with 401(k) Plan sponsorship.  The article is a great resource for employers who sponsor 401(k) or other retirement plans, especially those who share employees’ sensitive information with third party administrators.

As reported by our sister blog, ADR: Advice from the Trenches, a federal district court in New York held that an arbitrator could not certify a “class” that included non-appearing members.

Recently proposed Department of Labor (Department) regulations governing Association Health Plans (AHPs) would, if made final, permit small employers to be regulated under more favorable, large group rules. The proposed regulations modify the rules governing fully-insured AHPs; they do not change the way that self-funded AHPs are regulated.

As we reported in an earlier blog post, the Federal Trade Commission and Department of Justice issued guidance in the waning days of the Obama administration reminding HR professionals and others that the antitrust laws could apply in the employment arena, particularly with respect to hiring and compensation matters.

The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court recently ruled in Mui v. Massachusetts Port Authority that payment for accrued, unused sick time is not a “wage” under the state wage act, M.G.L. c. 149, s. 148, and therefore a failure to pay for sick time upon a termination of employment is not subject to the Act’s treble damages and other remedies.

Now that January has come to an end, and we’ve navigated compliance with our own resolutions and employment obligations (as discussed on our latest post on The Bubbler), we’re going to take a look at a few topics of legislation that are brewing on the state and local level.

As reported by our sister blog, ADR: Advice from the Trenches, the Sixth Circuit determined that an employer's notice of its mandatory arbitration policy -- without more to secure the employee's knowing assent to this employment term -- is not enough to compel arbitration.

On January 12, 2018, the Maryland Senate joined the Maryland House in voting to override Governor Hogan’s veto of House Bill 1, the Maryland Healthy Working Families Act, which requires employers to provide paid sick and safe leave to hundreds of thousands of Maryland workers.