Labor & Employment Law Update

On July 1, 2017, Chicago’s Minimum Wage increases to $11.00 per hour for non-tipped employees and $6.10 for tipped employees (Chicago Municipal Code §1-24). Cook County’s new minimum wage is $10.00 per hour for non-tipped and $4.95 for tipped employees.

IMPORTANT NOTICE REQUIREMENTS: All employers that maintain a business facility within the geographic boundaries of  Chicago AND/OR are subject to one or more of the license requirements in Title 4 of the Municipal Code of Chicago are covered by Chicago’s Minimum Wage Ordinance and MUST do the following starting July 1st:

Imagine that in order to increase time and attendance record accuracy and efficiency, you have invested in a new biometric time clock system. This makes good business sense and overall, it is a straightforward issue…until HR tells you that an employee has refused to use the time clock for religious reasons.

In U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission v. Consol Energy, Inc., (4^th Cir. June 12, 2017), a coal mine worker who was a practicing evangelical Christian, refused to use a hand scanner time clock because he believed that it would “mark” him with the sign of the ...

Summer is unofficially here.  Kids are out of school.  Many employees are checking their vacation balances to see how much time they can take off work.

For HR, vacation balances can be incredibly time-consuming. You have to worry about different accrual rates for different employees and set up tracking systems to account for those different rates. You have to make sure time off is being properly requested, approved and accounted for. After all, vacation not properly accounted for can lead to over-stated liabilities on company financials. For most companies, payroll is already the ...

As previously reported on March 29^th, the fight against the Supreme Court’s 1977 decision in Abood v. Detroit Board of Education continues. On June 6, 2017, Mark Janus, an Illinois state employee who is required to pay agency fees to AFSCME Council 31 pursuant to the Illinois Public Labor Relations Act, filed a petition for a writ of certiorari seeking review of a seventh circuit decision that affirmed the dismissal of his complaint. The petition poses the following question to the Supreme Court:  should Abood be overruled and public sector agency fee arrangements ...

The proposed budget released by the White House in May includes a plan to provide new parents with up to six weeks of paid leave to bond with a new child. Obviously the plan is far from becoming law; implementing such a plan would require congressional approval and that process has yet to start. Still, the plan is interesting for its shear breadth and its mode of funding. The plan calls for funding through each state’s unemployment insurance programs. So far at least, there are very few details.

Though many employers choose to provide some amount of paid leave to new parents, only 3 states ...

With the Cook County Earned Sick Leave Ordinance’s July 1, 2017 effective date around the corner, the Cook County Commission on Human Relations (“CCCHR”) approved its administrative rules on May 25, 2017.

While we previously discussed the Ordinance, one of the most significant aspects of the rules is the new requirement that employers provide covered employees with a notice of their rights under the ordinance at least once per calendar year.

The CCCHR also published a model poster, which must be posted in each place of business where any covered employee works within ...

On May 15, 2017, the seventh circuit ruled that unless the language in a collective bargaining agreement (“CBA”) explicitly states that the employee must resolve his statutory and contractual rights through the grievance procedures in the contract, an employee is free to file suit in court to resolve his statutory claims.

After being terminated from employment, Luis Vega, a seasonal employee at Forest Home Cemetery, attempted to collect unpaid wages by resorting to the grievance procedures of his CBA.  When these efforts proved futile, Vega filed a Fair Labor Standards Act ...

Secretary of Labor Alexander Acosta announced on Monday that portions of the controversial Department of Labor (DOL) fiduciary rule will go into effect as planned on June 9, 2017, with full implementation of the rule on January 1, 2018. Issued in April 2016, the fiduciary rule expanded the definition of a fiduciary under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA) and imposed a higher standard of care and significant new procedural requirements on those providing investment advice to retirement plans, plan sponsors and participants. Implementation of the rule was ...

The National Business Group on Health’s Eighth Annual Survey on Corporate Health recently revealed the growing prevalence of workplace wellness programs. Many such programs are expanding their aim to not only better the physical health of employees, but also to improve employees’ emotional health and financial security.

Employers should be cautious that health and wellness programs, particularly those dealing with the physical and emotional health of employees, do not run afoul of existing laws. Many employers offer employees health promotion and disease prevention ...

Recently, there has been much discussion about the composition of the five-member board in Washington, D.C., including President Trump’s appointment of Philip Miscimarra as National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) Chairman, and the expected shift from pro-labor initiatives – especially in light of the expiring term of the NLRB General Counsel who was appointed by President Obama. The NLRB recently issued an order that may be a sign of things to come.

On May 5, a divided NLRB denied the NLRB General Counsel’s motion for summary judgment (a request for judgment as a matter of law ...