Last year, President Biden signed the Ending Forced Arbitration of Sexual Assault and Sexual Harassment Act of 2021 into law. The name of the new law speaks for itself. Victims of sexual harassment or sexual assault at work that previously signed arbitration agreements can arbitrate their claims but don’t have…
The EEOC has guided employers to accommodate employee use of certain prescribed medications, and excuse failed drug tests that reflect the presence of those drugs — if it is done safely — because those individuals who test positive likely have an underlying disability. But, when employee self-medicate — like with…
In recent years, many states have passed equal pay laws. At the federal level, well… For U.S. Representative Rosa DeLauro (D-CT-03), last week marked the fourteenth time (according to Wikipedia) that she had introduced the Paycheck Fairness Act. The measure is designed to combat the wage disparity woman face compared to…
The answer to that question (wait for it) — it depends on the state. A few states, like California, Colorado, Kentucky, and Massachusetts (there may be others), define “wages” statutorily to include vacation pay. And since an employer must pay all wages owed to terminated employees, generally, that includes accrued but unused…
Grab your pearls for clutching, and let’s get into this recent federal court decision to find out. Last week, I talked about how having a signed arbitration agreement is generally a prerequisite to requiring an employee to arbitrate employment claims against the company. If you have a signed arbitration agreement,…
A client embroiled in an employment dispute with a former employee once asked me if we could force the employee into arbitration. So, I asked the client for a copy of the arbitration agreement that the individual had signed. After an uncomfortably long pause, I went back to drafting the…
If you went to the refrigerator to grab a cold beverage, you probably missed President Biden’s remarks about “beginning to restore the dignity of work.” So far during this administration, President Biden has signed a few employment bills into law. You’ve got the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act and the PUMP…
A couple of years ago, I blogged (here) about a company that installed spyware to monitor an employee’s Facebook Messenger activity, discovered a nefarious plot to secure client information and intellectual property, and obtained an injunction to stop the employee from starting a competing business. But there are legal limits…
On Friday’s edition of The Employer Handbook Zoom Office Happy Hour — catch the replay here if you missed it — we talked about 2022 changes in the law that could impact 2023 updates to your employee handbook. One talked briefly about how the pendulum at the National Labor Relations…
I don’t know about you, but the COVID-19 pandemic has warped my sense of timing. Still, it seems like a lot happened in 2022 that warrants some discussion about how employers should revise their employee handbooks for 2023. Covering 50 states, the District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico seems ambitious;…