Labor & Employment Law Update

A federal court in Pennsylvania recently ruled that a former employee presented sufficient evidence to warrant a jury trial on a claim she was retaliated against after she resigned. The decision serves as a good reminder that anti-retaliation protections extend beyond the end of the employment relationship to protect former employees.

Cherie Leese complained of sexual harassment while employed by a state agency. She later filed a charge alleging she was issued discipline in retaliation for her report. The parties eventually settled. As part of that settlement, Leese resigned ...

Several years ago, a trend was emerging that consisted of third-party, private marketplaces where employers could have their employees purchase health care with an “allowance” of sorts. This “allowance” could be facilitated by an employer that set up a stand-alone Health Reimbursement Arrangement (HRA). The emerging trend was analogous to the way traditional pension plans evolved to 401(k)s. Then, before things could take off, the Affordable Care Act put a halt to it. Essentially, the ACA said that these stand-alone HRA plans broke the rules because they had ...

The state of California recently passed legislation that amends the definition of race under the California Fair Employment and Housing Act (the California State statute that prohibits employment discrimination, among other things) to include “traits historically associated with race, including but not limited to, hair texture and protective hairstyles.”  The legislation defines “protective hairstyles” to include, without limitation, hairstyles such as “braids, locks, and twists.”  In passing this legislation, California’s Legislature made clear that ...

In case you missed it, on July 1, 2019, the Chicago and Cook County Minimum Wages increased as follows:

·         Chicago: $13.00 per hour for non-tipped employees and $6.40 for tipped employees.

·         O’Hare and Midway Airport Certified Service Providers: $14.10 for non-tipped employees and $7.60 for tipped employees.

·         Cook County: $12.00 per hour for non-tipped and $5.25 for tipped employees.

July 1, 2019 also marks the 2-year anniversary of the implementation of the Cook County and Chicago Paid Sick Leave Ordinances.  While the full details are nuanced, these laws require all companies with ...

On June 26, 2019, the U.S. Supreme Court confirmed the continued viability of Auer deference, an interpretive doctrine that requires courts to defer to an agency’s reasonable reading of a genuinely ambiguous regulation. In confirming the use of Auer deference, the Supreme Court also narrowed its scope, setting out clear limits to courts’ use of this doctrine. This decision came in the case Kisor v. Wilkie, which involved an ambiguous regulation of a Department of Veteran Affairs rule.  

In affirming Auer deference as a viable interpretive tool for courts to employ ...

Did you know that when a private sector employer has evidence that a union has lost support from a majority of its bargaining unit members, the employer can refuse to recognize the union as their bargaining representative?  In 2001, the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) ruled that employers can unilaterally withdraw recognition from an incumbent union based upon “objective evidence” (typically, a petition signed by at least half of the bargaining unit members indicating that they no longer wished to be represented by a union) that the union has lost majority support ...

Pre-employment drug screening for marijuana is starting to create exposure for employers.  In several states, including Connecticut, Maine and Massachusetts, courts have ruled that employees have a valid claim against an employer for terminating or pulling a job offer because the employee tested positive for marijuana during the pre-employment stage, in order to enforce a drug-free workplace policy. In fact, Illinois’ new recreational cannabis law, effective January 1, 2020, infers that employers could face a claim under Illinois’ Workplace Privacy law for doing the ...