Labor & Employment Law Update

As has come to be expected, the guidance regarding COVID-19 has changed again. This time the CDC narrowed the definition of who constitutes a “close contact” for purposes of tracing people with potential exposure to someone who has COVID-19.

While a “close contact” is still defined as someone who was within 6 feet of an infected person for at least 15 minutes, what has changed is when the exposure occurred during the ill person’s sickness. The relevant time is now from two days before illness onset (or, for asymptomatic patients, two days prior to specimen collection ...

It’s that time of year and even a pandemic will not stop Illinois, Cook County and the City of Chicago from increasing their minimum wages on July 1, 2020 as follows:

The July 1 change for the City of Chicago includes significant changes and new nuances that employers must be aware of, including different wage rates based on number and age of employees.

WARNING MAJOR CHANGES

However, the biggest change that employers must take note of does NOT pertain to the wage rate, but WHO will be subject to the City of Chicago’s Minimum Wage and Paid Sick Leave Ordinances. The Amendment to ...

On June 18, 2020, the Illinois Supreme Court ruled that enforcement of a union contract provision mandating the destruction of disciplinary records was against Illinois’ public policy of preserving and retaining public records. The decision settles an ongoing dispute between the City of Chicago and the Fraternal Order of Police, Chicago Lodge No. 7 (FOP) about the disposition of disciplinary records. 

Since 1981, the parties’ contract has included a requirement that disciplinary records be destroyed after five years. Things changed in 1991 when a federal court in a civil ...

As written about previously, the Paycheck Protection Program Flexibility Act, while short in text, went to great lengths in helping borrowers extend their “covered period” and maximize forgiveness.  As such, the previously issued forgiveness application needed to be revised.

Last week, on June 16, 2020, the SBA released a revised forgiveness application, a short-form and corresponding instructions for both. Generally, the short form is available for: 1) self-employed individuals; 2) those that did not reduce salaries by more than 25% and did not lay off any employees; or ...

On June 15, 2020 the United States Supreme Court handed down a momentous decision ruling that Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (“Title VII”) protects gay and transgender employees from workplace discrimination. The decision consolidated three cases where the employees were terminated from their jobs: two separate cases involving the terminations of gay employees; and one case involving the termination of a transgender employee.

The vote was 6 to 3, with Justice Neil M. Gorsuch writing the majority opinion. He was joined by Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and ...

On June 5, 2020, President Trump signed the Paycheck Protection Program Flexibility Act. Notable changes will allow businesses more time to spend loan proceeds on permitted costs. This is significant relief for those businesses that were unable to continue operations and bring employees back to work.  With many of those employees being lower paid, paying them to stay at home was not well received as it interfered with the higher amounts of unemployment compensation they could otherwise receive.

The significant changes allowed by the PPP Flexibility Act are:

• The period during which ...

Chicago employers take note – beginning July 1, 2020, you may be required to post work schedules at least 10 days in advance in order to comply with the Fair Workweek Ordinance. This seems like as good a time as any for a refresher on the Ordinance.

Are We Subject to the Ordinance?

Generally, employers must comply with the Ordinance if they meet each of the below conditions:

• They employ 100+ employees (both inside and outside of Chicago) or, for nonprofit corporations, 250+ employees;
• They employ 50+ employees who spend the majority of their time at work in Chicago and earn $50,000 or ...

U.S. Immigration laws and regulations have always required immigration attorneys to have a certain level of creativity to problem solve. Keeping current on regulation changes, combined with creativity, helped me navigate the paths to my clients’ goals even when they took unexpected turns.

The COVID-19 pandemic has taken creative problem solving and preparedness to a whole new level.

Here are six situations I am helping clients navigate.

Work-from-Home Effect on H-1Bs

U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) is a traditional organization that has not caught up with ...

If your “essential” workforce is not already organized, consider this your wake-up call. 

As this pandemic has worn on, and more “essential workers” have fallen ill to COVID-19, labor unions have become noticeably more active. Just last Monday, the AFL-CIO filed suit in federal court to compel the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) to issue an emergency temporary standard, aimed at forcing the agency to mandate certain safety actions by employers. 

Noticeably, the rhetoric from the AFL-CIO has been focused on “all workers” as opposed to “their ...

After the Workers’ Compensation Commission withdrew its proposed Emergency Rule declaring that any employee in an “essential industry” contracting COVID-19 will be rebuttably presumed to have contracted COVID-19 at work, the legislature and business groups met and worked through a proposed amendment to the Workers’ Compensation Act addressing the issue.

Under the proposed amendment, which appears set to pass, first responders, frontline workers, and most “essential employees” will be rebuttably presumed to have contracted COVID-19 at work, if they ...