President Biden announces vaccine requirement for private employers
9/10/21
By: Jacob McClendon On September 9, President Biden announced that the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (“OSHA”) will develop an emergency rule requiring private businesses with 100 or more employees to require their employees to be fully vaccinated or to produce a negative test result at least once a week. This will be a sweeping…
8/11/21
By: Adam Khan On July 15, 2021, the California Supreme Court delivered a victory for employees and an equally tough blow to California employers. In Jessica Ferra v. Loews Hollywood Hotel, LLC, the California Supreme Court held employers must pay meal and rest period premiums for each workday an employee was not provided a meal…
7/21/21
By: Victoria Fuller and Lori Eller In KPM Analytics N. Am Corp. v. Blue Sun Sci., LLC, the District of Massachusetts recently provided some much-needed guidance concerning the enforceability of non-compete agreements governed by the Massachusetts Noncompetition Agreement Act, M.G.L. 149, § 24L (“MNAA”). There, the employee signed a Non-Competition, Non-Solicitation and Confidentiality Agreement shortly…
Here’s a tip: don’t expect the regulation governing servers’ tips to get clear anytime soon
7/6/21
By: Justin Boron As we have previously noted, the regulatory seesaw on the tip credit a business may take on employees’ tips has continued under the Biden Administration. After reversing the previous administration’s banishment of the so-called 80/20 rule, the DOL under the current administration has come up with a new proposed rule. The current…
6/3/21
By: John Bennett and Doug Blatecky Although many businesses have not mandated that their employees get a COVID-19 vaccine, the EEOC’s recently released guidance confirms that federal equal employment opportunity laws do not prevent an employer from requiring employees physically entering the workplace to be vaccinated. It remains unclear whether not businesses can require employees to…
5/19/21
By: Stephanie Greenfield A recent decision from the Superior Court of New Jersey held that the New Jersey First Act (“Act”) and its residency requirements are unconstitutional in their present form. The Act, signed by Gov. Chris Christie in 2011, says nearly all public officers and employees must live within the state borders unless they…
5/18/21
By: Victoria Fuller and Matthew Schwartz In 15 LaGrange Street Corporation v. MCAD, Civ. A. No. 20-P-726, the Massachusetts Appeals Court partially vacated a judgment entered by the Massachusetts Commission Against Discrimination (the “Commission”) against an employer to the extent it was based on the Hearing Officer’s finding that the complainant-employee was unlawfully terminated on the…
5/12/21
By: Hannah-Kate Gosch On April 26, 2021, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (“EEOC”) announced that it was opening the 2019 and 2020 EEO-1 Component 1 data collection on its recently relaunched data collection website. Eligible employers have until Monday, July 19, 2021 to submit their 2019 and 2020 EEO-1 Component 1 data, which breaks down…
Two Lawsuits Test the Permissibility of Mandatory COVID-19 Vaccination Policies in Employment
5/11/21
By: Michael Hirota As the COVID-19 vaccine becomes more widely available within the United States, many employers are grappling with how to incorporate employee vaccination into their return-to-work requirements. Two recent lawsuits in New Mexico and California challenging mandatory vaccination policies represent the first lawsuits in what could be a new type of COVID-19 litigation…
At the Intersection of FMLA and Workers Compensation: Ramji v. Hospital Housekeeping Systems, Inc.
5/11/21
By: Tia Combs The Eleventh Circuit recently weighed in on how the Family Medical Leave Act (“FMLA”) and state law workers compensation schemes interact in Ramji v. Hospital Housekeeping Systems, LLC, No. 19-13461, 2021 WL 1257247 (11th Cir. April 6, 2021). In doing so, the Court reinforced that workers compensation is not a substitute for…
PA’s Prevailing Wage Law Shows Its Teeth
5/7/21
By: Joshua Ferguson and Courtney Mazzio Pennsylvania’s Prevailing Wage Law was enacted in 1961 to protect construction workers from out-of-state competition, mandating those contractors pay the wages that “prevail” in each region on all government construction projects more than $25,000. Violations of this state labor law has caught the attention of the Attorney General in Pennsylvania, who has used the violations as justification…
Arbitration – Is it the Happiest Place on Earth?
5/4/21
By: Anna Drake A recent lawsuit filed in Pennsylvania state court involves the important topic of dispute resolution and how it can play out in an employment setting. It can be specifically important in terms of employment agreements that include mandatory dispute resolution provisions, impacting them both positively and negatively. The Pennsylvania matter involves ex-employees…