Labor & Employment Law Update

Layoffs have become a reality for many businesses and employees in recent months, and this unfortunate trend seems likely to continue as we head toward the fall and winter months. The U.S. Supreme Court’s recent decision in Bostock v. Clayton County highlights additional considerations—beyond simply protecting LGBT employees—that businesses must factor into decisions regarding which employees to layoff, and which to retain.

As we previously wrote, the Supreme Court’s Bostock decision essentially held that the anti-discrimination protections of Title ...

With COVID-19 cases surging in numbers, the legal implications of face mask policies for businesses have taken center stage again. 

First a quick recap, from my prior article, ADA Implications, I Don’t Want To Wear a Mask…:

• Businesses can require employees to wear masks at work and customers to wear face masks when coming into businesses;
• Businesses can refuse entry or ask customers to leave if they refuse to wear a face mask;
• For both employees and customers that say they cannot wear a face mask due to a disability or medical condition, the business must engage in the ADA interactive ...

In a decision issued yesterday, General Motors LLC, 369 NLRB No. 12 (2020) , the National Labor Relations Board declared that “[it] will no longer stand in the way of employers’ legal obligation to take prompt and appropriate corrective action to avoid a hostile work environment on the basis of protected characteristics.”

Prior to yesterday’s decision, employees who engaged in obscene, racist, and sexually harassing speech in the course of activity otherwise protected by the NLRA, were protected by various setting-specific standards that provided leeway to ...

The Supreme Court declined to review a Ninth Circuit decision that would have answered a question currently splitting the circuits: may an employer consider employees’ salary histories in setting their current pay without violating the Equal Pay Act (EPA)?  As discussed in our previous blog article on January 14, 2019, the EPA prohibits employers from paying wages to employees of one sex less than employees of the other sex for equal work. The EPA holds employers strictly liable for differential pay, regardless of whether the employer had discriminatory intent, unless the ...

On July 8, 2020 the United States Supreme Court ruled that the U.S. civil rights laws barring discrimination on the job do not apply to most lay teachers at religious elementary schools. The decision extends earlier Supreme Court rulings that shielded religious organizations from employment-discrimination claims by ministers, called the “ministerial exception.” This principle, which courts derived from the First Amendment, bars the government from telling a religious institution whom to choose as its faith leaders. Respecting that principle sometimes requires the ...

After schools and day cares closed in the spring due to the pandemic, employers and parents alike were hopeful that summer would bring a return to normalcy – especially in the form of camp for kids. Alas, that hope has not become a reality as many states have either delayed or prohibited the opening of camps. What are employers and working parents to do?

On June 26, the federal Department of Labor issued guidance stating that, under certain circumstances, an employee whose child’s day camp is closed as a result of COVID-19 may take leave under the Families First Coronavirus ...

As has come to be expected, the guidance regarding COVID-19 has changed again. This time the CDC narrowed the definition of who constitutes a “close contact” for purposes of tracing people with potential exposure to someone who has COVID-19.

While a “close contact” is still defined as someone who was within 6 feet of an infected person for at least 15 minutes, what has changed is when the exposure occurred during the ill person’s sickness. The relevant time is now from two days before illness onset (or, for asymptomatic patients, two days prior to specimen collection ...

It’s that time of year and even a pandemic will not stop Illinois, Cook County and the City of Chicago from increasing their minimum wages on July 1, 2020 as follows:

The July 1 change for the City of Chicago includes significant changes and new nuances that employers must be aware of, including different wage rates based on number and age of employees.

WARNING MAJOR CHANGES

However, the biggest change that employers must take note of does NOT pertain to the wage rate, but WHO will be subject to the City of Chicago’s Minimum Wage and Paid Sick Leave Ordinances. The Amendment to ...

On June 18, 2020, the Illinois Supreme Court ruled that enforcement of a union contract provision mandating the destruction of disciplinary records was against Illinois’ public policy of preserving and retaining public records. The decision settles an ongoing dispute between the City of Chicago and the Fraternal Order of Police, Chicago Lodge No. 7 (FOP) about the disposition of disciplinary records. 

Since 1981, the parties’ contract has included a requirement that disciplinary records be destroyed after five years. Things changed in 1991 when a federal court in a civil ...

As written about previously, the Paycheck Protection Program Flexibility Act, while short in text, went to great lengths in helping borrowers extend their “covered period” and maximize forgiveness.  As such, the previously issued forgiveness application needed to be revised.

Last week, on June 16, 2020, the SBA released a revised forgiveness application, a short-form and corresponding instructions for both. Generally, the short form is available for: 1) self-employed individuals; 2) those that did not reduce salaries by more than 25% and did not lay off any employees; or ...