Labor & Employment Law Update

On Tuesday November 6^th, slightly over five weeks after hearing oral arguments, the Supreme Court, by an 8-0 vote, ruled that small government units are covered under the Age Discrimination in Employment Act (ADEA) regardless of their size.  In so doing, the Supreme Court resolved a circuit court split between the 9^th Circuit and the 6^th, 7^th, 8^th and 10^th Circuits, where the latter courts ruled that the ADEA’s requirement of at least 20 employees for coverage of private-sector employers also applied to state and local governments.

In Guido v. Mount Lemmon Fire District, the ...

It’s that time again: Election Season. Employers must be aware of important legal issues when responding or reacting to politics in the workplace, as well as understanding workers’ rights to engage in the political process. This article provides key reminders to public and private employers to manage the workplace without accidentally violating relevant laws.

Imposing a blanket ban on political discussions may run afoul of the NLRA.         

The National Labor Relations Act (NLRA), which applies to private unionized and non-unionized workplaces, protects non-supervisory ...

A recent decision from the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois sheds light on how to determine what job tasks are properly considered essential functions of a position under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). A plaintiff alleging that her employer denied her a reasonable accommodation for her disability must prove that she is a qualified individual, which requires showing that she can perform all the essential functions of the job with or without an accommodation. In the recent decision, the court dismissed a police officer’s failure to ...

Effective January 1, 2019, the Illinois Wage Payment and Collection Act requires employers to reimburse “necessary expenditures or losses incurred by the employee within the employee’s scope of employment and directly related to services performed for the employer.”

Here’s what you need to know now to prepare

While the law requires reimbursement of expenses which are for the primary benefit of the employer, employers are not responsible for expenses due to (i) the employee’s negligence, (ii) normal wear, or (iii) theft (unless the theft was the result of the ...

On October 11, 2018, OSHA issued an additional memorandum to further clarify its position on incentive programs and drug testing. While the memorandum does not set out drastic changes to OSHA’s earlier rule and guidance, it does indicate that OSHA will take a more practical approach to incentive programs and drug testing than previously indicated.

With regard to incentive programs, it indicates that traditional incentive programs based on a lack of injuries during a particular time period will not be deemed violative of OSHA if the employer has measures in place to ...

Reasonable accommodation issues often require an employer to balance the needs of the employee requesting accommodation with the needs of other employees who are impacted by the decision. These issues can be magnified when an employee relies on a service dog. Most employers are unfamiliar with the issue, and courts and enforcement agencies provide little guidance on service dogs in the employment context. As a result, when the issue arises, many employers scramble to answer the most basic questions: Are we required to allow a service dog in the workplace? What if another employee ...

On August 13, 2018, as part of the John S. McCain Fiscal Year 2019 National Defense Authorization Act, President Trump signed into law the Main Street Employee Ownership Act, which was originally introduced by Senator Gillibrand and Representative Velazquez, a rare bipartisan achievement.

Employee Stock Ownership Plans (ESOPs) are often established using a loan to finance the purchase of company stock by the plan. ESOPs only infrequently default, so this is an area in which the government can be confident that the taxpayers will get their money back. The Small Business ...

Last week, the 7^th Circuit Court of Appeals (covering Illinois, Indiana and Wisconsin) held that Section 14(b) of the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) does not permit local governments to create local “right-to-work” zones that seek to ban union-only shops in the private sector. The court further concluded that bans on requiring union hiring halls and compulsory union dues checkoff agreements are also invalid under the NLRA.

In 2015, the Village of Lincolnshire adopted an ordinance that banned union-security agreements, within the Village, by forbidding any ...

In September 2018, the U.S. DOL published “updated” FMLA forms and the U.S. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau published updated FCRA forms.

DOL – Family and Medical Leave Act Forms

The DOL’s September 4, 2018 update is trivial: only the expiration date changed (now extended to August 31, 2021). There are no other changes to information, questions, or even layout (indeed, they maintain their prior revision date). Nonetheless, employers should promptly update their files with these new template forms. 

The forms are all available from the DOL’s  Wage and Hour ...

The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) is taking more steps towards positive, significant change for private-sector employers:

Joint Employer Standard

CURRENT LAW:  The Board may find that two or more entities are “joint employers of a single work force if they are both employers within the meaning of the common law, and if they share or codetermine those matters governing the essential terms and conditions of employment.”  Browning-Ferris Industries of California, Inc., 362 NLRB No. 186 (2015). The primary inquiry is whether the purported joint-employer possesses ...