Labor & Employment Law Update

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 ...

Illinois employers that have 25 or more employees and have been in business at least two years will be required to participate in the state-run retirement savings program or offer another qualifying retirement plan later this year.

The status of the Illinois Secure Choice Program was uncertain last fall following an amendatory veto issued by former Governor Bruce Rauner making the program optional, instead of mandatory, as discussed in a previous blog post. The Illinois legislature generally opposed making the program optional, and chose not to act on the amendment ...

The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, passed in December 2017, is continuing to hit employers and employees in unanticipated ways. The latest impact is on special parking spaces for executives, employees of the month and employee reserved parking spots. Generally, under the IRS Tax Code (“Code”), an employer is not able to take a tax deduction for qualified transportation fringes (“QTFs”) provided to an employee. This includes parking an employer provides to its employees (i.e., the parking lot where the employees park). However, the Code provides two exemptions allowing the ...

Many employers would appreciate a clear road map when traveling the often winding roads of reasonable accommodations under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA).  However, there are no rigid routes for the interactive process.  After an employee requests an accommodation, the employer must engage in a good faith and flexible dialogue that addresses the employee’s specific medical limitation, request, job position, and work environment, among other factors.  That said, employers can find guidance in at least ten hard and fast rules on the reasonable accommodation process:

As with so many ADA questions, “it depends.” However, a pair of cases pending before the 7^th Circuit Federal Court of Appeals (covering Illinois, Indiana, and Wisconsin) could provide further guidance.

The 7^th circuit has not definitively ruled on whether obesity alone is a “disability.” Federal appellate courts for the 2^nd, 6^th, and 8^th circuits (covering NY, CT, and VT; KY, MI, OH, and TN; and AR, IA, MN, MO, ND, NE, and SD respectively) have all concluded obesity is not a disability unless it is linked to some other disabling condition. In the first of two pending ...

Skilled Nursing Facilities (SNFs) are responsible for shielding residents “from abuse, neglect, misappropriation of resident property, and exploitation.” 42 C.F.R. § 483.12. This regulation implicates the employment process, since SNFs are prohibited from employing “or otherwise engag[ing]” individuals who have been “found guilty by a court of law,” had a “finding entered into the State nurse aide registry,” or had “a disciplinary action in effect against his or her professional license” as a result of “abuse, neglect, exploitation, mistreatment ...

As a follow up to our March 4^th blog, three days later the DOL announced a proposed OT rule increasing the minimum salary required for an employee to qualify for exemption from federal overtime pay requirements. The proposed increase in salary level is from $455 per week ($23,660 annually) to $679 per week ($35,308 annually). In addition, the proposed rule includes the following changes: 

• The proposal increases the total annual compensation requirement for “highly compensated employees” from the currently-enforced level of $100,000 to $147,414 per year (note, this ...