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Employment Law Newsletter: A Monthly Report On Labor Law Issues

Our Monthly Report on Labor Law Issues, also known as the Employment Law Bulletin, is a monthly newsletter that covers a wide range of labor law issues, including affirmative action plans, strikes, OSHA regulations, minimum wage requirements, and more. Other topics covered have included issues related to the COVID-19 pandemic, such as workplace walk-outs and strikes, vaccinations, and employee rights related to positive test results and quarantine. The newsletter also covers issues related to discrimination, such as artificial intelligence and racial bias, and issues related to unions, such as organizing efforts and union successes at companies like Amazon and Starbucks. The newsletter also covers issues related to taxes, immigration, and court cases related to labor law. Stay informed and avoid legal missteps, by subscribing to email updates here.

Employee protests at technology companies have gone beyond common employee issues and expanded to important company business decisions.  As workforces become more skilled and unemployment drops, certain industries have become more tolerant of outspoken employees.  Over the last year, workers have protested at companies over military contracting, s…
The Bureau of Labor Statistics announced on February 8, 2019, that they were 20 major work stoppages in 2018 that involved almost one-half million U.S. workers.  The total number of workers who participated was the highest since 1986.  There were actually 167 total work stoppages, with major work stoppages defined as those involving 1,000 or more…
The courts have been in conflict in recent years as to whether gay and transgender people are protected from discrimination on the job, an issue the Supreme Court agreed to review on April 22, 2019.  Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act prohibits job discrimination because of "sex."  The traditional interpretation of Title VII does not expand th…
Social Security "no-match" letters generate a great deal of concern in the employer community as to how to handle such issues.  Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has in the past taken the position that receipt of one of these notifications creates an affirmative duty to investigate and potentially take action, at least to avoid a potential find…
Federal law still considers marijuana illegal, and it is exempt from positive drug-testing protection under the ADA.  For many years, arbitrators and courts allowed employers to terminate employees who tested positive for marijuana, even in medical marijuana situations.  Since 2017, however, the situation has become more confusing. Courts in at l…
| May 2019
On April 1, 2019, DOL published a third proposal rule over two weeks, this one dealing with joint employment.  The Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) allows joint employer situations where an employer and a joint employer are jointly responsible for the employee's wages.  This is a major issue for companies that could be potentially liable for wage a…
| May 2019
On March 28, 2019, DOL announced a proposed rule to clarify and update the regulations governing the "regular rate" on which overtime is computed.   Under current rules, employers are discouraged from offering more perks to their employees as it may be unclear whether those perks must be included in the calculation of an employees' regular rate of…
The Department of Labor (DOL), on March 7, 2019, published its proposed "white collar" overtime exemption regulations, raising the previously required $23,660.00 annualized salary to $35,308.00.  Employers may still satisfy up to 10% of the minimum required salary by the payment of nondiscretionary bonuses, incentives and commissions, as long as the bo…
In 2016, the EEOC mandated that a significant amount of pay data be submitted by employers with their EEO-1 annual reports.  The new report form required employers to enumerate employee demographics by pay-band - the various pay bands and persons in those bands would be summarized by race, sex and national origin.  In 2017, the Trump Administrati…
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One of the most vexing issues for employers over the years is whether the action of an individual employee constitutes "protected concerted activity," which is protected against retaliation by the employer under the Labor Act.  Some of these cases, often decided adversely to the employer, arise in a context in which a single employee engages in some type of…
Do employers violate the Age Discrimination In Employment Act (ADEA) in only recruiting at college campuses or turning away applicants for having too much experience?  The Seventh Circuit has a simple answer to that question, in a ruling on January 23, 2019, that the federal age discrimination law does not protect older applicants from the unintended d…