Effective July 1, 2025, Washington State will protect employees from coercion based on immigration status. Specifically, Senate Bill 5104 prohibits employers from exploiting a worker’s immigration status in furtherance of the...more
Effective January 1, 2026, Washington SB 5101 will require employers to provide leave and safety accommodations to employees who are victims of a hate crime or have a family member who is a victim of a hate crime....more
6/4/2025
/ Discrimination ,
Domestic Violence ,
Employee Rights ,
Employer Responsibilities ,
Hate Crimes ,
New Legislation ,
Paid Leave ,
Reasonable Accommodation ,
State Labor Laws ,
Unpaid Leave ,
Washington
Effective January 1, 2027, SB 5217 expands Washington’s Healthy Starts Act (“Act”) to apply the law to employers of any size, require scheduling flexibility for postpartum appointments, mandate paid lactation accommodation...more
Washington employers take note: Significant changes to the Washington Paid Family and Medical Leave (WA PFML) law are on the horizon that will impact every employer in the Evergreen State. The bill amending the law, HB 1213,...more
It’s the season for legislative updates – and Washington State lawmakers are no exception. Job postings have recently been an area of focus in state and local laws. Two recent updates in Washington State impose new...more
As many Washington employers are acutely aware, there exists sparse statutory guidance on how employers must respond to personnel file requests by their employees – and no statutory definition of what constitutes a “personnel...more
5/23/2025
/ Employee Privacy Rights ,
Employee Rights ,
Employer Responsibilities ,
Employment Policies ,
Hiring & Firing ,
New Legislation ,
Personnel Records ,
Private Right of Action ,
State Labor Laws ,
Termination ,
Washington
On April 25, 2025, Washington State Governor Bob Ferguson signed House Bill 1875 into law. The amendment will become effective July 27, 2025. The new law amends Revised Code of Washington § 49.46.210 to expand the reasons for...more
4/29/2025
/ Corporate Counsel ,
Employee Benefits ,
Employee Rights ,
Employees ,
Employer Responsibilities ,
Immigration ,
Immigration Procedures ,
New Legislation ,
Paid Sick Leave ,
State Labor Laws ,
Washington
On July 1, 2023, after a long delay, mandatory withholdings for the WA Cares Fund finally took effect. The WA Cares Fund is a state-run, long-term-care insurance program requiring employers to pay premiums through a mandatory...more
Spring has sprung in the State of Washington, and there are several new paid leave developments taking root. First, the Washington Paid Family and Medical Leave Act, which generally provides leave with partial wage...more
No, no, not who to vote for. Rather, employers should brush up on laws and regulations that entitle employees to time off to vote or to serve as an election official. What time off do you need to give employees?...more
On June 8, 2021, the Sonoma County, California Board of Supervisors enacted an urgency ordinance that extends and amends – in part retroactively to January 1, 2021 – its emergency paid sick leave (EPSL) ordinance....more
Effective January 1, 2021, SB 1383 expands the California Family Rights Act (CFRA) to cover smaller employers and provide access to leave for additional covered reasons....more
On September 9, 2020, California Governor Gavin Newsom signed Assembly Bill (AB) 1867, a five-part bill that: (1) codifies existing COVID-19 supplemental paid sick leave (CPSL) requirements for certain food sector workers...more
On August 13, 2020, Governor Jay Inslee issued Proclamation 20-67: Food Production Workers Paid Leave. Proclamation 20-67 modifies previous proclamations to prohibit any food production employer from continuing to operate...more
8/28/2020
/ Agribusiness ,
Coronavirus/COVID-19 ,
Food Manufacturers ,
Food Supply ,
Infectious Diseases ,
Meat Processing Plants ,
Migrant and Seasonal Agricultural Worker Protection Act (MSPA) ,
Migrant Workers ,
Paid Time Off (PTO) ,
Seasonal Workers ,
Sick Leave ,
State and Local Government ,
State Labor Laws ,
Workplace Safety
San Diego County employers that scrambled to find thermometers to comply with the county’s prior health order learned on June 16, 2020 that their efforts were not in vain. One week after the county amended its order to omit...more
As San Diego County, California employers scrambled to find thermometers to comply with the county health order temperature check requirement, the county did an about-face on its employee health screening directives. On June...more
On May 4, 2020, Washington Governor Jay Inslee signed Proclamation 20-25.3, which outlines a phased approach to reopening Washington’s economy. After issuing Proclamation 20-25.3, the Office of the Governor issued a series...more
5/29/2020
/ Construction Workers ,
Coronavirus/COVID-19 ,
Employer Liability Issues ,
Employer Responsibilities ,
Personal Protective Equipment ,
Re-Opening Guidelines ,
Restaurant Industry ,
Retailers ,
Return-to-Work Agreements ,
Screening Procedures ,
Social Distancing ,
Workplace Safety
On April 16, 2020, Governor Newsom signed Executive Order ("EO") N-51-20, which took immediate effect and requires certain food sector workers to receive COVID-19 supplemental paid sick leave (CPSL)...more
Dear Littler: A long-term San Francisco-based employee with our company is returning soon from maternity leave. In discussing her return date, she requested accommodations for expressing breast milk at work. After working...more
9/17/2019
/ Affordable Care Act ,
Breastfeeding ,
Employer Liability Issues ,
Employment Policies ,
Labor Regulations ,
Lactation Accommodation ,
Local Ordinance ,
Pregnancy Discrimination ,
Reasonable Accommodation ,
Rest and Meal Break ,
State and Local Government ,
State Labor Laws
Dear Littler: Election Day is coming up in a few weeks, and I’ve been getting questions from our managers in various branches about voting-related leave for employees. Our company has operations in more than a dozen states,...more
Effective June 7, 2018, Washington State amended its domestic violence leave law to require employers to provide reasonable safety accommodations to victims of domestic violence, sexual assault, or stalking and to incorporate...more
After San Francisco passed its Formula Retail Employee Rights Ordinances in November of 2014, making it the first jurisdiction to impose scheduling requirements on private employers, predictive or fair scheduling laws were...more
El huracán Harvey está inundando implacablemente el sureste de Texas y las áreas aledañas, resultando en inundaciones y daños sin precedentes. A medida que la tormenta se agrava, muchos empleadores se han preguntado cómo...more
8/31/2017
/ Employer Liability Issues ,
Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) ,
Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) ,
Hurricane Harvey ,
Hurricane Season ,
Natural Disasters ,
Reasonable Accommodation ,
Severe Weather ,
State of Emergency ,
Unemployment Benefits ,
USERRA ,
Vacation Pay ,
Wage and Hour ,
WARN Act
Hurricane Harvey is relentlessly drenching southeast Texas and the surrounding areas, resulting in unprecedented flooding and damage. As the storm rages, many employers are wondering how to respond and what happens next....more
8/30/2017
/ Employer Liability Issues ,
Exempt-Employees ,
Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) ,
Hurricane Harvey ,
Hurricane Season ,
Leave of Absence ,
Loss of Income ,
Natural Disasters ,
Reasonable Accommodation ,
Severe Weather ,
State of Emergency ,
Telecommuting ,
Unemployment Benefits ,
USERRA ,
Wage and Hour ,
WARN Act
On August 5, 2015, the City of Tacoma, Washington published its final Paid Leave Rules (“Rules”) implementing Tacoma’s Paid Leave Ordinance (“Ordinance”). The Ordinance requires nearly all private sector employers to provide...more