Chicago’s recent enactment of its Paid Leave and Paid Sick and Safe Leave Ordinance (“Ordinance”) marks some of the country’s most progressive paid time off legislation and also imposes robust requirements upon Chicago employers. On November 9, 2023, Chicago’s City Council passed the Ordinance, effective December 31, 2023, touting it as a benefit to low-wage workers previously lacking vacation time.
On September 15, 2023, New York Governor Kathy Hochul signed a law that made dramatic changes to the enforceability of invention assignment provisions in employment agreements and likely in related agreements including offer letters and Confidentiality, Information and Invention Assignment Agreements (CIIAAs). The law took effect immediately and adds New York to a growing list of states with laws placing limits on invention assignment provisions.
On October 8, 2023, California Governor Gavin Newsom signed into law Senate Bill No. 497, the “Equal Pay and Anti-Retaliation Protection Act.” The new law amends California Labor Code sections 98.6, 1102.5, and 1197.5 to create a “rebuttable presumption of retaliation” if an employee experiences an adverse employment action within 90 days of engaging in any protected activity covered by the specified sections. This new law, which will become effective on January 1, 2024, also entitles a prevailing plaintiff civil penalties for each violation.
In Harstein v. Hyatt Corp., the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals held that Hyatt Corporation (“Hyatt”) violated California law, which requires the payment of all wages at separation, when one of its hotels failed to pay employees their accrued vacation pay after furloughing them in the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic.
President Joe Biden recently issued an executive order devised to establish minimum risk practices for use of generative artificial intelligence (“AI”) with focus on rights and safety of people, with many consequences for employers. Businesses should be aware of these directives to agencies, especially as they may result in new regulations, agency guidance and enforcements that apply to their workers.
Continue Reading What Employers Need to Know about the White House’s Executive Order on AI
On October 26, 2023, the National Labor Relations Board (the “Board”) released a final rule which vastly broadens the standard for determining joint-employer status under the National Labor Relations Act (“NLRA”) and makes it easier for the Board to find a joint employer relationship. This updated standard rescinds and replaces the prior standard under the 2020 final rule, discussed in our blogs here and here. The new final rule makes three key changes:
Beginning on January 1, 2024, pursuant to House Bill 2068, Illinois employers located across thirty-eight (38) counties and townships will be required to provide employees with a “pre-tax commuter benefit.” This is one of a number of new Illinois laws impacting employers going into effect at the start of the new year.
On September 6, 2023, New York Governor Kathy Hochul signed a law that prohibits employers from requiring employees to attend employer-sponsored meetings the “primary purpose” of which is to communicate the employer’s opinions on religious or political matters, including relating to joining a labor organization. The law became effective immediately, and is another step in the small, but growing number of states, that are campaigning against so-called “captive audience” meetings.
Continue Reading New York State Bans Employers from Holding Mandatory “Captive Audience” Meetings
California has passed two new items of legislation, Senate Bill 699 and Assembly Bill 1076, which will further regulate and restrict the enforcement of employment non-compete agreements in California, and expand the scope of remedies for those affected by them. These new laws will become effective on January 1, 2024, and now is the time for employers to assess and revise their employment-related agreements and restrictive covenants accordingly. As detailed below, they also require employers to notify employees and certain former employees by February 15, 2024 that certain non-compete provisions are void. The two new laws are detailed below.
On October 7, 2023, Governor Gavin Newsom signed SB 700 into law, amending the California Fair Employment and Housing Act (FEHA). SB 700, effective January 1, 2024, expressly prohibits employers from requesting information from job applicants relating to their prior cannabis use.
Continue Reading High Protections on Information Relating to Employees’ Cannabis Use
In a recent 2-1 decision in Quickway Transportation, Inc., 372 NLRB No. 127 (2023), the National Labor Relations Board (the “Board”) reversed the Administrative Law Judge and ordered a trucking company to re-open its terminal and restore the status quo ante when it held that the company’s decision to terminate all of its recently unionized truck drivers and close the terminal violated sections 8(a)(3) and 8(a)(5) of the National Labor Relations Act (the “Act”). While this decision does not overturn existing Board precedent, as might be expected given the spate of recent decisions that we previously reported and discussed here, here, here, and here, but it is significant because it demonstrates the current Board’s willingness to rigorously sift through and interpret every aspect of the employer’s conduct to infer union animus and to rely on that inference even in the absence of direct evidence.