On April 29, 2024, the U.S. Department of Labor’s (DOL) Wage and Hour Division (WHD) published new guidance clarifying employers’ obligations under federal labor laws as they pertain to use of automated systems and artificial...more
New York will be the first state to require employers to provide paid leave to pregnant employees for prenatal care under one of a series of proposals included in legislation recently signed by Governor Kathy Hochul to...more
On April 23, 2024, the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) unveiled a new final rule that will significantly raise the minimum salary threshold to qualify for certain overtime exemptions under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA),...more
On April 18, 2024, a jury in Seattle, Washington, determined that a not-for-profit hospital system employer would be required to pay nearly $100 million for time clock rounding and meal period violations, raising concerns for...more
4/23/2024
/ Collective Bargaining Agreements (CBA) ,
Compensatory Damages ,
Employer Liability Issues ,
Employment Litigation ,
Jury Awards ,
Jury Verdicts ,
Rest and Meal Break ,
Rounding ,
State Labor Departments ,
State Labor Laws ,
Wage and Hour ,
Willful Violations
Maine employers may be preparing to comply with Maine’s Paid Family and Medical Leave (PFML) program as required payroll contributions to the PFML Insurance Fund are set to begin on January 1, 2025, but questions remain as...more
On March 22, 2024, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis signed a bill into law that amends the state’s Child Labor Law to allow minors sixteen and seventeen years of age to work more hours....more
With California’s new $20-per-hour minimum wage for fast food workers set to take effect on April 1, 2024, the California Department of Industrial Relations (DIR) has updated its guidance regarding the new minimum wage law’s...more
3/29/2024
/ Airports ,
Covered Employees ,
Covered Employer ,
Entertainment Venues ,
Exempt-Employees ,
Exemptions ,
Fast-Food Industry ,
Food Service Workers ,
Governor Newsom ,
Minimum Wage ,
State Labor Laws ,
Wage and Hour
Governor Tina Kotek is expected to sign the bill into law a bill that would eliminate most qualifying reasons for an employee’s protected leave under the Oregon Family Leave Act (OFLA) that are now covered under the state’s...more
New York recently raised the minimum salary basis thresholds for executive and administrative employees in order to satisfy the exemption from overtime, not to be confused with the separate upcoming increases to salary...more
On February 1, 2024, the First Circuit Court of Appeals held that a plaintiff alleging a violation of the Maine Equal Pay Law (MEPL) does not need to show additional discriminatory intent beyond establishing that an employer...more
On January 20, 2024, New York City enacted a law that will create a private right of action allowing employees to file lawsuits in court alleging violations of the city’s Earned Safe and Sick Time Act (ESSTA) within two years...more
On January 17, 2024, New York’s Appellate Division Second Department held that “manual workers” under the state labor law do not have a private right of action to pursue alleged violations of the labor law’s weekly pay...more
New class action and California Private Attorneys General Act (PAGA) filings have grown exponentially in recent years and reached record numbers in 2023. This trend is raising concerns for California employers as the state...more
The California Department of Industrial Relations (DIR) recently released new guidance clarifying how employers using mandatory paid sick leave accrual and caps may transition to the increased amount of forty hours or five...more
On October 30, 2023, President Joe Biden signed an executive order (EO) on artificial intelligence (AI) in an effort to establish a “coordinated, Federal Government-wide approach” to the responsible development and...more
11/7/2023
/ Artificial Intelligence ,
Best Management Practices ,
Biden Administration ,
Department of Labor (DOL) ,
Executive Orders ,
Federal Contractors ,
Immigration Procedures ,
National Security ,
NIST ,
Public Policy ,
STEM ,
Technology Sector ,
Wage and Hour
Beginning January 1, 2024, California employees may have to pay overtime to more computer software employees who earn less than $115,763.35 per year, or $55.58 per hour, or $9,646.96 per month....more
10/24/2023
/ Consumer Price Index ,
Department of Industrial Relations ,
Exempt-Employees ,
Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) ,
Minimum Salary ,
NPRM ,
Software Developers ,
State Labor Laws ,
Technology Sector ,
Wage and Hour ,
White-Collar Exemptions
Employers in Washington are facing a flurry of class actions alleging violations of the state’s new pay transparency law. While it is too early to gauge the viability of the claims, employers doing business in Washington may...more
10/17/2023
/ Class Action ,
Damages ,
Employer Liability Issues ,
Employment Litigation ,
Governor Inslee ,
Injunctive Relief ,
Job Ads ,
Pay Transparency ,
Posting Requirements ,
Putative Class Actions ,
State Labor Laws ,
Wage and Hour
The New York state law requiring employers to disclose expected compensation ranges in advertisements for jobs, promotions, and transfers takes effect on September 17, 2023....more
On August 18, 2023, in Hamilton v. Dallas County, the full Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals upended a longstanding precedent, significantly broadening the types of adverse employment actions that could give rise to an...more
8/23/2023
/ Adverse Employment Action ,
Anti-Discrimination Policies ,
Appeals ,
Civil Rights Act ,
Commission on Human Rights ,
Employer Liability Issues ,
Employment Discrimination ,
Employment Litigation ,
En Banc Review ,
Gender Discrimination ,
Precedential Opinion ,
Public Employees ,
Remand ,
Reversal ,
Terms and Conditions ,
Title VII ,
Wage and Hour ,
Work Schedules
Illinois has joined the wave of jurisdictions passing pay transparency requirements. On August 11, 2023, Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker signed a bill into law that will require employers to include pay ranges in job postings...more
On August 5, 2023, New Jersey’s Temporary Workers Bill of Rights (TWBR) law takes full effect, bringing new obligations for temporary service firms and employers that utilize temporary workers. The State of New Jersey has...more
On June 13, 2023, the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) overruled its 2019 independent contractor standard focused on whether workers have “entrepreneurial opportunity” and returned to a common law multi-factor analysis...more
A putative class action recently filed in Seattle, Washington, against a solar energy equipment company could be the first lawsuit to test the bounds of the state’s relatively new restrictions on noncompetition agreements for...more
On May 4, 2023, Hawaii lawmakers sent a bill to the governor that would require employers to disclose hourly pay rates or salaries in job listings and expand pay discrimination protections—which could make the Aloha State the...more
On March 29, 2023, the California Supreme Court put the final nail in the coffin of an employee’s claim that California Labor Code Section 204 requires employees to be paid on weekends.
The California high court declined...more