Labor & Employment Law Update

Company sponsored volunteer activities foster a positive corporate culture and can improve employee engagement and morale. On March 14, 2019, the U.S. Department of Labor issued an Opinion Letter that makes wage and hour compliance associated with corporate volunteer campaigns a bit easier. The Opinion Letter clarifies that employers are not required to pay non-exempt employees for volunteer time outside their normal work hours so long as participation is truly voluntary and the employer does not direct the volunteer activities. The DOL further confirmed that an employer ...

Having handled countless prevailing wage disputes, the local, state or federal administrative agency assigned to administer compliance (i.e. the US Department of Labor) is the only government entity that can lawfully determine whether a contractor is in violation of an applicable prevailing wage law and push for debarment.  Ultimately, a contractor who has been determined by a government agency to have violated its prevailing wage obligations (i.e. a clerical mistake, an accounting error, poor or missing paperwork) is a long way from getting on a “debarment list.” First, in ...

A currently pending federal case reminds us that hospitality employers could have claims for sexual harassment and discrimination brought against them based on the alleged inappropriate conduct of their customers. 

The case is Hashway v. Starbucks Corp. (D.R.I., No. 1:19-cv-00125), filed on March 11, 2019. The plaintiff is a former female Starbucks barista. The case arose from the alleged inappropriate conduct of a male customer. The claim was that the customer allegedly would routinely come to the store and stare at the employee, make lewd and inappropriate comments about ...

The United States Supreme Court announced today that it will consider whether Title VII protects workers from discrimination based on sexual orientation. To date, several federal appeals courts have reached different conclusions on this issue. In 2017, the Seventh Circuit was the first to rule that sexual orientation discrimination was a form of sexual discrimination. The Second and Sixth Circuits followed in 2018. But in 2017, the Eleventh Circuit reached the opposite conclusion. And earlier this year, the Fifth Circuit reaffirmed its long standing “binding precedent” ...

Like a majority of U.S. states, Illinois’ legal stance on marijuana is becoming more tolerant and liberal – with regard to both medical and recreational use (also called “adult use”). As we previously reported on November 6, 2018, the Alternatives to Opioids Act of 2018, PA 100-1114 amended Illinois’ Medical Cannabis Pilot Program to allow individual prescribed opioid medication to enroll in the Illinois Opioid Alternative Pilot Program (OAPP). The OAPP allows these individuals to seek relief through the legal use of medical cannabis, rather than opioid ...

As we previously noted in our February 12, 2019 blog, increases to the minimum wage in Illinois are on their way. And as we also noted, drastic increases in the damages for which Illinois employers may be liable in cases of minimum wage and overtime violations are now in effect. 

That said, there are a number of steps employers can take to minimize the risks of wage and hour lawsuits and liability, and they include the following:

• Train front line supervisors not to allow any off-the-clock work. Along with this training, employers must also make clear to all employees that they cannot work ...

The first all-female spacewalk was planned for Friday, March 29, 2019. News outlets included the event in their coverage of women’s history month and the strides women had made in male dominated industries. However, the Monday before the spacewalk NASA announced that only one female would be able to participate because NASA did not have enough properly configured spacesuits for two women. Attempting to modify an existing uniform in the time before the spacewalk would have involved some risk to the astronaut who wore it. While a spacewalk was completed, the team consisted of a ...

On April 3, 2019, the EEOC informed a federal district court that the earliest it could complete its collection of pay data from covered employers as part of their EEO-1 data reporting obligations is September 30, 2019. The court still needs to rule on the EEOC’s proposed plan and, therefore, employers have not received a final deadline by which to file the required pay data. However, this filing brings employers one step closer to an answer for an issue that has caused them justified concern given the significant time and resources that will be needed to collect this pay data. 

Here is a ...

The Social Security Administration (SSA) announced in late 2018 that they would begin issuing SSA No Match letters again beginning in the Spring of 2019. Employers must be aware that the process has begun and the SSA No Match letters they could receive in 2019 look different from prior years. The letters will state “Employer Correction Request Notice” at the top and will not provide any employee names on the notice.  A sample of the notice can be found on the Social Security website. 

In order for the employer to determine what employees were identified as “mis-matches” by SSA ...

More than two dozen Illinois State Senators have signed on to co-sponsor SB0075, a bill to enact the Illinois Hotel and Casino Safety Act (the “Act”). Likely to pass in the coming weeks, the Act will impose new requirements on hotels and casinos operating in Illinois to provide “panic buttons” to certain employees and adopt specific anti-sexual harassment policies.

What Does The Act Require?

The Panic Button

The panic button requirement is directed at hotel or casino employees placed in certain positions that may involve interacting with guests alone. 

Under the Act ...