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Employment Law

Paycheck Fairness Act clears House of Representatives

04/02/2019
The House of Representatives has passed the Paycheck Fairness Act, legislation first introduced in 1997 that would prohibit employers nationwide from asking job applicants about their past or current pay.

New rules tackle rate of pay, joint employment

04/02/2019
Regulators at the Department of Labor have been busy, issuing two new notices of proposed rulemaking in less than a week.

Employment law on Supreme Court docket

03/28/2019
In the three months before the Supreme Court’s 2018-2019 session closes, it will decide several employment law cases and may rule on the biggest issue the court could face this year: Whether Title VII of the Civil Rights Act bars discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation.

State OT thresholds may exceed new DOL rule

03/28/2019
Employers in some states have—or will soon have—more than federal wage-and-hour compliance to worry about if their exempt employees work overtime.

Do vacation, sick leave buy-backs factor into overtime pay?

03/26/2019
Many employers that provide sick leave and vacation leave time have a policy or practice that allows employees to “sell back” their accrued but unused time. Do these payments for sick and vacation time have to be counted as part of the employee’s regular rate of pay for the purpose of computing overtime?

Court won’t referee popularity contest: Being disliked isn’t grounds for lawsuit

03/26/2019
Some workers seem to believe that any slight or negative comment is grounds for a discrimination lawsuit. Fortunately, that’s not the case.

Beware unreasonably tight deadlines for filing internal reports of sexual harassment

03/26/2019
The EEOC believes overly strict time limits tend to discourage reporting and absolve supervisors of responsibility for reporting. Plus, it may embolden harassers to repeat their harassment or escalate it.

HR must respond to physically demeaning acts

03/26/2019
When an employee comes to HR to complain about physically demeaning behavior directed her way, pay close attention. Demeaning behavior accompanied by sexist or racist comments, for example, increases the risk that the employee will file—and win—a hostile work-environment case.

Respect the results of outside investigations into complaints

03/26/2019
Be prepared to honor the findings of outside investigators you hire to get to the bottom of internal complaints. Accept the results and act immediately to remedy the situation.

Comments on overtime rule accepted until May 21

03/26/2019
The clock has finally started ticking on the Department of Labor’s proposed rule raising the white-collar salary threshold to $35,308 per year.