Last week, the Federal Trade Commission and the U.S. Department of Justice Antitrust Division issued guidance for human resources professionals on how antitrust laws apply to employee hiring and compensation. The federal agencies point out that employees and applicants are harmed if companies that normally compete against each other to find the best employees enter into agreements to fix wage levels or promise not to poach each other’s workers.  Blatant no-poaching or wage-fixing agreements will be criminally investigated by the Justice Department.  Violations of law that don’t warrant criminal prosecution may still lead to employers’ civil liability.  Even the decision to share sensitive compensation information with competing employers – directly or through third parties – may violate antitrust laws unless the information exchange is “carefully designed to prevent harm to competition."

Discrimination

• McDonald’s will pay $56,500 to settle a disability discrimination suit in which the EEOC charged that a McDonald’s restaurant refused to interview a deaf job candidate.
• The Justice Department sought to intervene in a private lawsuit alleging race discrimination and retaliation by the State of Maryland and city and county law enforcement in Maryland.
• A new lawsuit against a private university in Connecticut claims an employee was fired in violation of federal disability laws after he informed his employer that he had been diagnosed with the onset of dementia.

• A major cyberattack last Friday used common internet-connected devices to block access to popular websites worldwide, demonstrating the vulnerability of the Internet of Things.
• Here is a great example of how predictive analytics helped one HR department convince an employee to rescind her resignation.
• HR Drive covered the results of a survey showing that adult learners fear the increase in tech in the workplace.
• A settlement was reached in a former CBS anchor’s $15 million suit accusing the network of failing to investigate her allegations that her former co-anchor hacked her email and released her personal details to gossip columnists.

• Construction and security industry groups sought a temporary restraining order in a last-minute attempt to block the Fair Pay and Safe Workplaces Executive Order—the “blacklisting” rule—set to take effect October 25.
• A Texas judge consolidated  two lawsuits that are trying to stop the new FLSA overtime rules from taking effect on December 1.
• Voters in five states will consider measures to raise the minimum wage in the upcoming election.
• The Kentucky Supreme Court ruled that Kentucky cities do not have authority to raise the minimum wage.
• Forbes described the benefits of having a neurodiverse workforce.