Q Our employment applications are available in English. If an applicant applies in a language other than English and our recruiters cannot read the responses, what do we do with the application? Are we able to disqualify...
Employment Law Letter
A Hawaii appellate court recently affirmed a decision upholding a citation for a "serious" violation issued by the Hawaii Occupational Safety and Health Division (HIOSH), rejecting a key defense because the employer didn...
Within hours of his inauguration on January 20, 2021, President Joe Biden signed an Executive Order (EO) on "Preventing and Combating Discrimination on the Basis of Gender Identity or Sexual Orientation." The order...
Prompted by an Executive Order (EO) from President Joe Biden on his second day in office, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) recently issued new guidance to employers on protecting employees from...
In early January 2021, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) announced it had sent notices of proposed rulemaking (NPRMs) on wellness programs under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) and the Genetic...
Q Our company has a paid time off (PTO) policy entitling employees to paid vacation and sick leave. When they request time off, can they choose to use unpaid leave instead if they still have a PTO balance? A In Wisconsin...
Litigating employment cases can be expensive, time-consuming, and disruptive for employers. Fortunately, a litigation tactic known as an “offer of judgment” can lead to an early resolution of the case and reduce the...
COVID-19 lawsuits and claims are on the rise, especially because of the Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification (WARN) Act. Recently, the attorneys responsible for filing a much-publicized Florida lawsuit against...
On February 3, Seattle Mayor Jenny Durkan signed into law a new ordinance requiring grocery employers to provide their employees an additional $4 per hour in hazard pay due to the coronavirus pandemic. The law went into...
In 2020, Virginia was the first southern state to ban discrimination based on hairstyles. This year, the state is on the verge of making history once again by becoming the first in the South to legalize and regulate...
District of Columbia Mayor Muriel Bowser recently signed into law one of the strictest bans on noncompete agreements in the United States. Under the “Ban on NonCompete Agreements Amendment Act of 2020,” noncompetes...
U.S. history is replete with political compromises. Some of the earliest compromises were made to ensure the ratification of the U.S. Constitution (the great compromise, the three-fifths compromise, and the electoral...
On January 29, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) issued guidance titled “Protecting Workers: Guidance on Mitigating and Preventing the Spread of COVID-19 in the Workplace.” The new guidance, which...
As the United States begins to transition from dealing with the COVID-19 crisis to planning ahead for better times, what can employers take away from the past year? For one thing, we’ve learned a lot about communicating...
Q One of our nursing home employees who was exposed to a COVID-19-positive resident just returned to work from a 14-day quarantine after testing negative. Do we have to record it in the Occupational Safety and Health Act...