The Trump Administration issued its latest Executive Order entitled Restoring Equality of Opportunity and Meritocracy (the “EO”) on April 23, 2025. The EO focuses on “disparate impact” discrimination and is the latest in a...more
On March 19, 2025, the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (“EEOC”) and the U.S. Department of Justice (“DOJ”) released joint “technical assistance documents” (i.e., non-binding interpretive guidelines for...more
3/20/2025
/ Department of Justice (DOJ) ,
Diversity ,
Diversity and Inclusion Standards (D&I) ,
Employment Discrimination ,
Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) ,
Executive Orders ,
Harassment ,
Race Discrimination ,
Retaliation ,
Sex Discrimination ,
Title VII
A federal district court in Maryland has temporarily enjoined enforcement of several key aspects of two recent DEI-related executive orders from the Trump Administration – Executive Order 14151 (Ending Radical and Wasteful...more
2/25/2025
/ Affirmative Action ,
Compliance ,
Constitutional Challenges ,
Diversity and Inclusion Standards (D&I) ,
Employment Discrimination ,
Executive Orders ,
Federal Contractors ,
Fifth Amendment ,
First Amendment ,
Preliminary Injunctions ,
Trump Administration
In the wake of President Trump’s “Ending Illegal Discrimination and Restoring Merit-Based Opportunity” Executive Order (the “Executive Order”) (discussed further here), many companies are in the process of revisiting their...more
President Trump has issued a flurry of wide-ranging executive orders intended to shake up the employment landscape. One of those orders, entitled “Ending Illegal Discrimination and Restoring Merit-Based Opportunity” (the...more
1/24/2025
/ Affirmative Action ,
Anti-Discrimination Policies ,
Civil Rights Act ,
Compliance ,
Department of Labor (DOL) ,
Diversity and Inclusion Standards (D&I) ,
Employment Discrimination ,
Executive Orders ,
Federal Contractors ,
OFCCP ,
OMB ,
Rehabilitation Act ,
Subcontractors ,
Trump Administration
The most recent amendment to New York’s Workers’ Compensation Law, which went into effect on January 1, 2025, permits any employee to seek workers’ compensation benefits when they experience a “mental injury premised upon...more
1/23/2025
/ Corporate Counsel ,
Employee Benefits ,
Employee Rights ,
Mental Health ,
New Legislation ,
New York ,
PTSD ,
State Labor Laws ,
Work-Induced Stress ,
Workers’ Compensation ,
Workplace Safety
New York employers are – once again – required to provide employees with notice regarding New York’s reproductive health decision making protections. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit vacated a lower court’s...more
1/22/2025
/ Compliance ,
Constitutional Challenges ,
Corporate Counsel ,
Discrimination ,
Employee Handbooks ,
Employee Rights ,
Employment Litigation ,
Employment Policies ,
First Amendment ,
New York ,
Personal Information ,
Religious Discrimination ,
Reproductive Healthcare Issues ,
State Labor Laws ,
Vacated
A year after announcing its first-in-the-nation effort to increase access to pregnancy-related healthcare, (discussed here), New York’s “paid prenatal leave” law is officially set to take effect on January 1, 2025. Employers...more
A federal judge in Texas has vacated the U.S. Department of Labor’s final rule increasing the salary thresholds for the “white collar” overtime exemptions under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) and did so on a nationwide...more
The Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals recently declined to comment on the National Labor Relations Board’s (the “Board”) McLaren Macomb decision which took aim at overbroad non-disparagement and non-disclosure agreements....more
A judge in the Northern District of Texas issued an order setting aside the Federal Trade Commission’s rule banning non-compete agreements and ordered that the rule shall not be enforced or otherwise take effect on September...more
On August 14th, a second federal judge, this time out of the Middle District of Florida, temporarily blocked the FTC’s rule banning non-compete agreements, but only as to the named plaintiff in that case. In Properties of...more
On July 3, 2024, the Federal District Court in the Northern District of Texas in Ryan LLC v. Federal Trade Commission granted a preliminary injunction staying the effective date of the FTC’s non-compete rule and enjoining the...more
The United States Equal Employment Opportunity (“EEOC”) has issued its final guidance on “Enforcement Guidance on Harassment in the Workplace,” the first of its kind in over 20 years. This final guidance builds on a variety...more
5/30/2024
/ Department of Labor (DOL) ,
Enforcement ,
Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) ,
Exempt-Employees ,
Federal Trade Commission (FTC) ,
Final Guidance ,
Gender Identity ,
Minimum Salary ,
Non-Compete Agreements ,
Pregnancy Discrimination ,
Pregnant Workers Fairness Act ,
Protected Class ,
Providing Urgent Maternal Protections for Nursing Mothers Act (“PUMP Act”) ,
Race Discrimination ,
Religious Accommodation ,
Remote Working ,
Retaliation ,
Sex Discrimination ,
Workplace Harassment Guidance
On April 23, 2024, by a 3-2 margin, the FTC voted to finalize its controversial non-compete rule, which, generally, will prohibit businesses from entering into non-compete agreements with nearly all workers across the U.S....more
4/26/2024
/ Department of Labor (DOL) ,
Employment Contract ,
Federal Bans ,
Federal Trade Commission (FTC) ,
Final Rules ,
FTC Act ,
Non-Compete Agreements ,
Non-Disclosure Agreement ,
Non-Solicitation Agreements ,
Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NOPR) ,
Restrictive Covenants ,
Trade Secrets
In a hotly anticipated decision, the New York State Appellate Division, Second Department held in Grant v. Global Aircraft Dispatch, Inc. that manual workers do not have a private right of action under the New York Labor Law...more
1/24/2024
/ Civil Monetary Penalty ,
Class Action ,
Employer Liability Issues ,
New York ,
NYDOL ,
Private Right of Action ,
State Budgets ,
State Labor Laws ,
Unpaid Wages ,
Wage and Hour ,
Wages
Hoping to “raise the bar” for the rest of the nation, Governor Hochul announced a first of its kind proposal that would allow qualifying workers in New York up to 40 hours of paid leave to attend prenatal appointments. While...more
1/18/2024
/ Disability Leave ,
Employees ,
Employer Liability Issues ,
Labor Reform ,
Labor Regulations ,
Medical Leave ,
New Legislation ,
New York ,
Paid Leave ,
Pregnancy ,
Wage and Hour
On December 22, 2023, New York Governor Kathy Hochul vetoed legislation that would have instituted a near-universal ban on non-competition provisions in New York after negotiations between the Governor and the bill’s...more
The City of Chicago recently enacted a new Paid Leave and Paid Sick and Safe Leave ordinance. Though initially slated to go into effect December 31, 2023, on December 13, 2023, the Chicago City Council voted to amend the...more
12/22/2023
/ Cause of Action Accrual ,
City of Chicago ,
Collective Bargaining Agreements (CBA) ,
Documentation ,
Eligibility ,
Employer Liability Issues ,
Notice Requirements ,
Paid Leave ,
Paid Sick Leave ,
Paid Time Off (PTO) ,
Recordkeeping Requirements
Although 2023 perhaps did not see the passage of any laws quite as impactful as 2022—which, as employers will recall, included New York State enacting its own pay transparency law (see here) and novel New York City Council...more
12/15/2023
/ #MeToo ,
Artificial Intelligence ,
Corporate Counsel ,
Earned Sick and Safe Time Act ,
Employee Rights ,
Employment Discrimination ,
Facebook ,
Freelance Isn't Free Act (FIFA) ,
Freelance Workers ,
Harassment ,
Intellectual Property Protection ,
Minimum Wage ,
New York ,
NYDOL ,
Pay Transparency ,
Remote Working ,
Retaliation ,
Settlement ,
State Labor Laws ,
Threshold Requirements ,
Wage and Hour ,
Wage Theft ,
WARN Act
In an effort to further restrict the use of confidentiality clauses when resolving employment discrimination, harassment, and retaliation claims, New York recently passed S4516, which amends Section 5-336 of the New York...more
In her first public comments since its passage, New York Governor Kathy Hochul expressed a desire to see changes in New York’s proposed ban on non-compete agreements (SB 3100) before she would consider signing the bill. We...more
The City of Chicago recently enacted a new Paid Leave and Paid Sick and Safe Leave ordinance which goes into effect December 31, 2023. The update is notable because it goes well beyond the recently passed Illinois Paid Leave...more
The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission ("EEOC") released its Proposed Enforcement Guidance on Harassment in the Workplace. In light of recent legal developments, such as the Bostock v. Clayton County decision, which...more
10/17/2023
/ #MeToo ,
Abortion ,
Anti-Harassment Policies ,
Anti-Retaliation Provisions ,
Bostock v Clayton County Georgia ,
Confidential Information ,
Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) ,
Gender Identity ,
Harassment ,
Popular ,
Proposed Guidance ,
Race Discrimination ,
Social Media ,
Title IX ,
Transgender ,
Workplace Harassment Guidance
In 2020, New York City amended its paid sick leave law, named the Earned Safe and Sick Time Act (“ESSTA”), to better align with New York State’s Paid Sick Leave law. Following these amendments, the Department of Consumer and...more