On the heels of the welcome news that employers have three more months to prepare for Massachusetts Paid Family and Medical Leave (“MAPFML”), last week the Massachusetts Department of Paid Family and Medical Leave (the...more
In the employment world, April showers bring regulatory updates impacting employers and employees throughout the country. We’ve provided brief updates below, along with links to our other posts providing more detail on each...more
4/15/2019
/ Association Health Plans ,
COBRA ,
Department of Labor (DOL) ,
Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA) ,
Employer Liability Issues ,
Excise Tax ,
Grandfathering Rules ,
Hiring & Firing ,
IRS ,
Paid Family Leave Law ,
Public Comment ,
Tax Exempt Entities ,
White-Collar Exemptions
“Ban the Box” laws prohibit or limit an employer’s ability to ask a job applicant about his or her criminal record. States, counties and cities have enacted this legislation to help applicants with criminal records combat...more
With the summer kicking off, it is a good opportunity for employers to review and refresh their employment practices to ensure compliance with developments on the federal, state and legal landscape. This Bubbler Post will...more
6/7/2018
/ Employee Training ,
Employer Liability Issues ,
Hiring & Firing ,
Job Applicants ,
Local Ordinance ,
Mandatory Arbitration Clauses ,
New Legislation ,
Pay Equity Laws ,
Salary/Wage History ,
Sexual Harassment ,
State and Local Government ,
State Labor Laws ,
Wage and Hour
Now that January has come to an end, and we’ve navigated compliance with our own resolutions and employment obligations (as discussed on our latest post on The Bubbler), we’re going to take a look at a few topics of...more
2/8/2018
/ Discrimination ,
Employer Liability Issues ,
Hiring & Firing ,
Job Applicants ,
Local Ordinance ,
New Legislation ,
Salary/Wage History ,
Sexual Harassment ,
Sick Leave ,
State and Local Government ,
State Labor Laws ,
Wage and Hour
On December 1, 2017, two weeks after being sworn in, NLRB General Counsel Peter Robb issued his first GC Memorandum. When the General Counsel’s office changes hands from one party to the other, some disruption is expected....more
12/22/2017
/ Browning-Ferris Industries of California Inc. ,
Duty to Disclose ,
Employee Handbooks ,
Employment Contract ,
Joint Employers ,
NLRB ,
NLRB General Counsel ,
Policy Memorandums ,
Protected Concerted Activity ,
Purple Communications ,
Raytheon ,
Regulatory Reform ,
Rescission ,
Revocation ,
Specialty Healthcare ,
Succession Planning ,
Unfair Labor Practices ,
Unions ,
Wage and Hour ,
Weingarten Rights
Hurricanes. Fires. Floods. Shootings. The evening news seems consistently laden with catastrophe.
In times like these, a federal agency called the National Disaster Medical System (NDMS) often springs into action. The...more
Employers often struggle over compliance with state wage deduction laws, and these potential violations carry with them considerable penalties. In Massachusetts, for example, employers face triple damages for violations of...more
What is happening in employment law? We will be providing you with quick employment law updates on a bi-monthly basis in a new series called “The Bubbler.” It will let you know what’s what and who’s who in the...more
9/9/2017
/ Charitable Donations ,
Class Action Arbitration Waivers ,
Decriminalization of Marijuana ,
Department of Labor (DOL) ,
Disability Discrimination ,
Employment Policies ,
Hiring & Firing ,
Hurricane Harvey ,
Medical Marijuana ,
Over-Time ,
Pregnancy Discrimination ,
Sex Discrimination
Harassment has long been an Achilles’ heel of the workplace. Believe it or not, like the NCAA’s tournament TV ratings, the number of harassment-related lawsuits has held rather steady since the 1990s! And like most NCAA...more
3/16/2017
/ Cyber Crimes ,
Employee Training ,
Employer Liability Issues ,
Harassment ,
Human Resources Professionals ,
Managers ,
Risk Mitigation ,
Sexual Harassment ,
Sexual Orientation Discrimination ,
Social Media ,
Supervisors
This morning Punxsutawney Phil told us that we are facing six more weeks of winter. Great. We thought it served as a good opportunity to remind employers of the importance of establishing inclement weather policies that are...more
With Election Day just a week away(!), it’s important that employers familiarize themselves with their employees’ rights to take leave to vote. While there is no Federal law granting employees the right to voting leave, at...more
Being connected to not just your friends, but their friends and their friends’ friends (it’s all six degrees of separation, right?) means that it’s become increasingly hard to stay anonymous when using an online dating...more
The growing prevalence of the Zika virus in the United States has already presented a number of hurdles for employers striving to create a safe and healthy workplace environment for their employees. These concerns are more...more
In the final weeks before the end of the legislative session, the Massachusetts House and State both addressed major pieces of labor and employment legislation. However, although the legislature passed S.2119, an Act to...more
8/11/2016
/ Anti-Discrimination Policies ,
Credit Checks ,
Equal Pay ,
Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) ,
Gender-Based Pay Discrimination ,
Governor Baker ,
Hiring & Firing ,
Legislative Agendas ,
New Legislation ,
Non-Compete Agreements ,
Pay Equity Act (PEA) ,
State and Local Government ,
Transgender ,
Wage and Hour ,
Wage Theft
The obligation to accommodate a disabled employee is an ongoing one; a doctor’s note may not be a prerequisite to engage in the interactive process – those are two important lessons that employers should take away from a...more
Last month, a California state appellate court issued a decision that, as the dissent characterized, went “where no one has gone before.” In Castro-Ramirez v. Dependable Highway Express, Inc., the court held that...more
Many employers still grapple with the application of certain anti-discrimination laws — such as Title VII and the ADA — to non-U.S. citizen employees working in the United States and U.S. citizen employees working overseas. ...more
The Zika virus has been the topic of much discussion and anxiety for many weeks. The United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has now issued travel warnings for more than two dozen countries in the...more
It is a familiar scenario: a company is on the verge of bankruptcy, bound by the terms of a collective bargaining agreement (CBA), and unable to negotiate a new agreement. However, this time, an analysis of this distressed...more