Labor & Employment Law Update

On June 15, 2020 the United States Supreme Court handed down a momentous decision ruling that Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (“Title VII”) protects gay and transgender employees from workplace discrimination. The decision consolidated three cases where the employees were terminated from their jobs: two separate cases involving the terminations of gay employees; and one case involving the termination of a transgender employee.

The vote was 6 to 3, with Justice Neil M. Gorsuch writing the majority opinion. He was joined by Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and ...

On June 5, 2020, President Trump signed the Paycheck Protection Program Flexibility Act. Notable changes will allow businesses more time to spend loan proceeds on permitted costs. This is significant relief for those businesses that were unable to continue operations and bring employees back to work.  With many of those employees being lower paid, paying them to stay at home was not well received as it interfered with the higher amounts of unemployment compensation they could otherwise receive.

The significant changes allowed by the PPP Flexibility Act are:

• The period during which ...

Chicago employers take note – beginning July 1, 2020, you may be required to post work schedules at least 10 days in advance in order to comply with the Fair Workweek Ordinance. This seems like as good a time as any for a refresher on the Ordinance.

Are We Subject to the Ordinance?

Generally, employers must comply with the Ordinance if they meet each of the below conditions:

• They employ 100+ employees (both inside and outside of Chicago) or, for nonprofit corporations, 250+ employees;
• They employ 50+ employees who spend the majority of their time at work in Chicago and earn $50,000 or ...

U.S. Immigration laws and regulations have always required immigration attorneys to have a certain level of creativity to problem solve. Keeping current on regulation changes, combined with creativity, helped me navigate the paths to my clients’ goals even when they took unexpected turns.

The COVID-19 pandemic has taken creative problem solving and preparedness to a whole new level.

Here are six situations I am helping clients navigate.

Work-from-Home Effect on H-1Bs

U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) is a traditional organization that has not caught up with ...

If your “essential” workforce is not already organized, consider this your wake-up call. 

As this pandemic has worn on, and more “essential workers” have fallen ill to COVID-19, labor unions have become noticeably more active. Just last Monday, the AFL-CIO filed suit in federal court to compel the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) to issue an emergency temporary standard, aimed at forcing the agency to mandate certain safety actions by employers. 

Noticeably, the rhetoric from the AFL-CIO has been focused on “all workers” as opposed to “their ...

After the Workers’ Compensation Commission withdrew its proposed Emergency Rule declaring that any employee in an “essential industry” contracting COVID-19 will be rebuttably presumed to have contracted COVID-19 at work, the legislature and business groups met and worked through a proposed amendment to the Workers’ Compensation Act addressing the issue.

Under the proposed amendment, which appears set to pass, first responders, frontline workers, and most “essential employees” will be rebuttably presumed to have contracted COVID-19 at work, if they ...

Previously, OSHA issued guidance indicating that most employers only had to record or report confirmed COVID-19 cases when provided with objective evidence that an employee contracted COVID-19 at work.  In practice, this put the burden on employees to submit evidence to employers establishing that their COVID-19 cases were contracted at work.

OSHA recently issued revised guidance on this issue, which goes into effect on May 26, 2020. Under the revised guidance, OSHA puts the burden on the employer to make a “reasonable determination” as to whether a confirmed ...

How cities, counties and states are actively enforcing their COVID-19 orders is all over the map, but criminal and/or civil penalties are on the books in some areas.  For example, last Friday, May 15, the Illinois Governor directed the Illinois Department of Public Health (IDPH) to add an emergency rule called “Pandemic or Epidemic Respiratory Disease – Emergency Provisions.”  The emergency rule authorizes IDPH to “take means it considers necessary to restrict and suppress dangerously contagious or infectious diseases, especially when existing in epidemic form.”  ...

Late Friday, May 15^th, the SBA released long overdue guidance on how to determine and apply for forgiveness of loans received under the Paycheck Protection Program. The application and corresponding instructions can be found here on the SBA website.

Within the application and instructions, several common questions have finally been answered:

1. How do we calculate payroll costs?  Do we go by pay period date or pay date?  What if the 8-week covered period doesn’t match up with our payroll?

A payroll cost must be either incurred OR paid. Initially, the CARES Act indicated that it had to ...

On May 13, 2020, the SBA and Treasury issued additional guidance with respect to the necessity certification that borrowers must make when applying for a PPP loan. FAQ #46 provides a safe harbor for borrowers receiving loans which are less than $2 million and also indicates that, in the event the SBA determines that a borrower receiving a loan in excess of $2 million lacks an adequate basis for making the necessity certification, such borrower will be afforded the opportunity to repay the loan. Specifically, FAQ #46 states:

Question: How will SBA review borrowers’ required ...