Labor & Employment Law Update

In the past week, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) twice flexed its muscle in the arena of employee rights – taking specific aim at severance agreements that require departing employees to waive their rights to collect whistleblower awards.

Background

Severance Agreements: For many companies, it is standard practice to present departing employees with voluntary severance agreements that set out the terms of the termination of the employment relationship.  Often, these include a monetary payment from the employer in exchange for a waiver and release of various ...

Without much notice or fuss, the U.S. Department of Labor updated two employment posters late July 2016:

• The Federal Minimum Wage poster applies to employers subject to the federal minimum wage.
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While there was no change to the actual Federal Minimum Wage, some of the additions and revisions included nursing mothers’ rights; consequence for misclassifying an employee as an independent contractor; DOL enforcement; and tip credits.

• The Employee Polygraph Protection Act Poster applies to most private employers.
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Minor changes included ...

One of the most recent illustrations of the need for written anti-discrimination policies and training comes from a case out of a federal trial court in Michigan. In the case, McCrary v. Oakwood Healthcare, Inc., No. 14-14053 (E.D. Mich. Mar. 16, 2016), a hospital patient stated that he did not want to be treated by African-American hospital employees.

Cutting to the chase: such a request is unacceptable; the customer (or patient, in this instance) is not always right. Nevertheless, the patient’s request was noted in his chart—and the hospital did not immediately reject the ...

On Friday, July 29, 2016, Governor Rauner approved Public Act 99-0703, the Child Bereavement Leave Act (likely to be codified at 820 ILCS 154). Without a lot of fanfare or notice, this law became effective immediately upon signature. This law requires employers with 50 or more employees (those subject to the Family and Medical Leave Act) to provide two weeks (10 business days) of unpaid bereavement leave to employees so that they can:

(1) attend the funeral or alternative to a funeral of a child;

(2) make arrangements necessitated by the death of the child; or

(3) grieve the ...

On July 28, 2016, the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals issued an unpublished decision that analyzed an Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) failure to accommodate a claim involving an employee who had applied for and received social security benefits for her disability. This case provides a helpful reminder on how employers should handle ADA plaintiffs who allege that they can return to work with accommodation but elsewhere represent that they are totally disabled from working.

In Stallings v. Detroit Public Schools, Case No. 15-2428, the court affirmed the district court’s ...

On July 1, 2016, the DOL issued an interim final rule that significantly increases the penalty amounts that may be imposed on plan sponsors for certain ERISA violations. The final rule ups the penalties for certain failures including failure to file an annual Form 5500 and failure to provide the Summary of Benefits and Coverage, as required by the Affordable Care Act.

These increases are the result of the Federal Civil Penalties Inflation Adjustment Act Improvements Act of 2015 whereby federal agencies were directed to adjust their civil monetary penalties for inflation each year ...

Fall is around the corner, and with it comes student interns bolstering their resumes. Interns can benefit companies by cutting down some of the workload; however, employers need to be aware that wage and hour laws can apply to interns.

The federal Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) mandates that nearly all employees be paid minimum wage and overtime for hours worked over 40 in a week. One FLSA exemption is for bona fide interns.

The U.S. DOL applies a fact-specific inquiry to determine whether an internship may be unpaid because “no employment relationship exists.”

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Back on our March 8, 2016 blog, we reported about two new lawsuits filed by the EEOC based on sexual orientation. On June 28, 2016, the EEOC reached a historic first settlement on one of these lawsuits. In the case against Pallet Companies, doing business as IFCO Systems North America, the EEOC alleged that the company discriminated against a woman by terminating her for complaining about harassment associated with her sexual orientation. Yolanda Boone, a forklift driver at IFCO’s Baltimore plant, complained that her supervisor harassed her by repeatedly making comments about ...

Last month, an EEOC Task Force issued a lengthy report on harassment in the workplace.  The report begins with mention of the prevalence of harassment claims, which appear in almost a full third of the employment discrimination charges that the EEOC received in 2015. Given this, the report recommends that employers reboot their anti-harassment measures. Among other helpful research and advice, the report discusses risk factors that make a workplace more susceptible to harassment, many of which are discussed below:

• Workforce comprised of many young workers. Those in their ...

This is an update to our July 6, 2016 post regarding OSHA’s plan to enforce new rules concerning post-accident drug and alcohol testing.  In response to a lawsuit filed to block the August 10^th implementation of OSHA’s new electronic recordkeeping rule (including the limits on post-accident drug and alcohol testing), OSHA announced yesterday that it will delay enforcement until November 1, 2016. There is no indication that OSHA will back away from its new stance on post-accident drug and alcohol testing, but enforcement will not begin until November 1, 2016.