Employment

Welcome to July! As we head deeper into the summer, the employment law world continues to heat up (and we’re not just talking about the record temperatures across the country!). We have rounded up the most recent developments impacting employers here.

On June 28, 2018, Massachusetts Governor Charlie Baker signed a law affecting all employers in the Commonwealth by creating a paid family and medical leave program funded by a state payroll tax, increasing the state minimum wage, and eliminating premium pay requirements for work performed on Sundays and certain holidays.

It's not unusual for a creditor of a debtor to cry foul that a non-debtor affiliate has substantial assets, but has not joined the bankruptcy.

In our sister blog, ADR: Advice from the Trenches, Don Davis explores back-to-back decisions by New York’s intermediate appellate court that applied very narrow state law principles permitting vacatur of an arbitration award on public policy grounds to vacate an arbitrator’s award that had reduced the employer-posed penalty of termination to a brief suspension.

“Ban the Box” laws prohibit or limit an employer’s ability to ask a job applicant about his or her criminal record. States, counties and cities have enacted this legislation to help applicants with criminal records combat additional barriers to securing employment. We’ve written about these laws as enacted in New Jersey, Washington, D.C., New York City, and California.

With the summer kicking off, it is a good opportunity for employers to review and refresh their employment practices to ensure compliance with developments on the federal, state and legal landscape.This Bubbler Post will review our earlier guidance and (hopefully!) prompt you to review your employment practices:

On May 15, 2018, Governor Hogan signed into law the “Disclosing Sexual Harassment in the Workplace Act of 2018” (the “Act”). The Act will go into effect on October 1, 2018, and contains two new obligations with which Maryland employers will need to comply.

In a landmark opinion on an important issue to employers, the Supreme Court held yesterday that employers can enforce class action waivers in arbitration agreements – leaving employers nationwide asking “what does this decision mean for us?”  This post aims to answer that question.

Over the past several years, health care entities have increasingly become the target of private and government plaintiffs complaining of disability discrimination. A crescendo of litigation has engulfed the health care industry

The California Supreme Court issued an important decision this week addressing the test for whether a worker is an independent contractor or an employee.  The U.S. Supreme Court declined to review a Seventh Circuit decision upholding an employer’s rule that a months-long leave of absence was not a reasonable accommodation.

Following in the footsteps of neighboring jurisdictions such as New York City, Albany County, and Massachusetts, on April 10, 2018, Westchester County enacted legislation to ban inquiries into a job applicant’s salary history.

This week, the California Supreme Court rejected the old “totality of circumstances” test to determine if a worker was properly classified as an independent contractor in favor of a new “ABC test” under which employers will be required to classify most workers as employees.

In a series of recent posts (available here and here), we discussed the expanded Massachusetts Employer Medical Assistance Contribution (EMAC) requirements, including the adoption of a new EMAC supplemental contribution.

New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy recently signed into law a bill that provides equal pay protections for members of certain protected classes. Governor Murphy also signed into law a bill that requires New Jersey employers to provide paid sick leave to employees.

In the wake of the #MeToo movement and the nationwide discourse over the prevalence of sexual harassment in the workplace, the state of New York and New York City have taken aggressive steps to implement stronger protections against workplace harassment.

The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals issued an important decision last week in Rizo v. Yovino, holding that an employer may not use an employee’s prior salary history to justify gender pay disparity under the federal Equal Pay Act. Aileen Rizo was hired as a school teacher in Fresno County in 2009.

On April 3, 2018, the Department of Justice Antitrust Division (“DOJ” or “Antitrust Division”) filed an antitrust complaint against Knorr-Bremse AG (“Knorr”) and Westinghouse Air Brake Technologies Corporation (“Wabtec”) for agreeing not to “solicit, recruit, hire without prior approval, or otherwise compete for employees” (collectively, “no-poach agreements”).

As reported by our sister blog, ADR: Advice from the Trenches, the Northern District of Illinois recently issued an unusual decision. After finding that both plaintiffs were bound by arbitration agreements with the defendant and after finding that the plaintiffs’ claims were within the scope of the arbitration clauses, it denied defendant’s motion to compel arbitration.

The Massachusetts Department of Unemployment Assistance (DUA) has begun assessing Employer Medical Assistance Contribution (EMAC) supplemental payments for the first quarter.

What’s a financial advisor to do? On March 15, 2018, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals in Chamber of Commerce of the U.S. v. U.S. Dep’t. of Labor, No. 17-10238, 2018 U.S. App. LEXIS 6472 (5th Cir. Mar. 15, 2018) vacated – thereby invalidating – a series of seven rules (which we collectively refer to in this post as the “fiduciary rule”) issued in April 2016.