After a week of significant work and bipartisan effort, Congress passed and the President signed into law an expansion of the FMLA along with separate paid sick leave benefits to American workers on March 18, 2020. Entitled...more
3/23/2020
/ Coronavirus/COVID-19 ,
EFMLA ,
EPSLA ,
Families First Coronavirus Response Act (FFCRA) ,
Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) ,
New Legislation ,
Relief Measures ,
Sick Leave ,
Sick Pay ,
Tax Credits ,
Unemployment Insurance
Virtually every employer in the United States is having to grapple with how to respond to employment-related issues as a consequence of the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. To assist employers, we have prepared an FAQ...more
3/21/2020
/ Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) ,
Collective Bargaining Agreements (CBA) ,
Coronavirus/COVID-19 ,
Disabilities ,
Emergency Management Plans ,
Employer Liability Issues ,
Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) ,
Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) ,
HIPAA Privacy Rule ,
Hiring & Firing ,
OSHA ,
Paid Time Off (PTO) ,
Quarantine ,
Remote Working ,
Sick Employees ,
Sick Pay ,
Travel Restrictions ,
Traveling Employee ,
Unemployment Benefits ,
Wage and Hour ,
Workplace Safety
Ever since the Supreme Court's 2005 decision in Smith v. City of Jackson, plaintiff employment lawyers have struggled with how best to assert a viable claim of disparate impact age discrimination. The concept of disparate...more
The Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit recently remanded a decision of the National Labor Relations Board (the "Board"), thus compelling the Board to revisit and clarify its position on the scope of Section 7 protection...more
Earlier this week, the National Labor Relations Board ("Board") issued an important decision, returning to its prior precedent with respect to employee use of employer-provided email for Section 7 purposes. In Caesars...more
When motive is at issue in resolving certain unfair labor practices under the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA), the National Labor Relations Board (the Board) utilizes the burden-shifting framework established under Wright...more
Von Kaenel v. Armstrong Teasdale, LLP, No. 18-2850 (8th Cir. 2019)
The question whether an individual is covered by the definition of "employee" under various civil rights laws often is dispositive of the case. Indeed, the...more
The Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals has issued another ruling regarding an obesity-related disability accommodation request under the American with Disabilities Act (ADA). Earlier this past summer, we reported on another...more
If you do not like your boss, can you demand your employer provide you with a new one? A federal district court in Montana recently rejected such an accommodation request in a well-reasoned case involving the Americans with...more
There is an ongoing tension between the National Labor Relations Board (the "Board") and employers who seek to expand the use of an arbitration forum to resolve employment disputes. The U.S. Supreme Court has continued to...more
T-Mobile USA, Inc. ("T-Mobile") in 2015 created T-Voice, a nationwide program through which customer service representatives could submit "pain points" regarding certain aspects of the job, including ideas to improve customer...more
Since being enacted in the early 1990s, the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) has provided meaningful protections for employees dealing with their own serious health issues or those of immediate family members through...more
The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) has proposed a new rule which would exclude undergraduate and graduate students from coverage under Section 2(3) of the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA). Specifically, students who...more
A unit clarification petition filed by the fledgling International Brotherhood of Professional Running Backs (IBPRB) was dismissed on September 17, 2019, by the Acting Regional Director of Region 13 of the National Labor...more
From an employer's perspective, one of the most challenging decisions to come out of the Obama-era National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) was the concept of "micro-units" within an employer's organizational structure. Under...more
While discussing work assignments with his supervisor, an employee uses abusive and profane language. In another incident, the employee disrupts a workplace meeting by playing loud music with racial and political overtones....more
The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) has revisited the issue of when an employer may restrict access to its private property by non-employee union agents. In Kroger Limited Partnership, a union business agent was denied...more
A recent decision by a three judge panel of the federal D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals highlights potential pitfalls for successor employers who want to establish new compensation terms. In First Student, Inc., the D.C....more
The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) continues to retreat from its previously expansive approach to what might be considered interference with Section 7 rights under the National Labor Relations Act (the "Act")....more
A Federal District Court in New York recently fielded the issue of whether there is such a thing as a union relations privilege and the extent of that privilege. In Hernandez v. Office of the Commissioner of Baseball (18...more
Employers seeking to juggle employee leave demands with their own regulatory compliance obligations received clarification from the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL). Specifically, the DOL published a clarifying opinion letter...more
Regulators, judges and academics have all been vexed over the issue of whether obesity, not caused by an underlying physiological condition, is a disability covered by the Americans with Disabilities Act (“ADA”)....more
On June 3, 2019, the Supreme Court of the United States made a ruling that employers and their legal counsel need to be aware of. In Fort Bend County v. Davis, the Supreme Court ruled that the charge-filing requirements for...more
6/6/2019
/ Affirmative Defenses ,
Amended Complaints ,
Appeals ,
Charge-Filing Preconditions ,
Civil Rights Act ,
Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) ,
Forfeiture ,
Fort Bend County Texas v Davis ,
Jurisdictional Requirements ,
Mandatory Claim-Processing Rules ,
Reaffirmation ,
Reasonable Accommodation ,
Religious Discrimination ,
Retaliation ,
Reversal ,
SCOTUS ,
Time-Barred Claims ,
Title VII ,
Waiver Rule ,
Wrongful Termination
Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker recently signed into law the Collective Bargaining Freedom Act, formally ending an initiative of former Illinois Governor Bruce Rauner. Effective as of April 12, 2019, the new law limits the...more
A District Court Judge in the Eastern District of Pennsylvania recently ruled that the Fair Labor Standards Act (“FLSA”) preempted a plaintiff’s attempt to add state common law counts for breach of contract and unjust...more