On March 16, 2023, Governor Gretchen Whitmer signed a bill that expands the Elliott-Larsen Civil Rights Act (ELCRA) to include protections for LGBTQIA+ individuals. ELCRA amendments Originally enacted in 1977, ELCRA...
Employment Law Letter
Massachusetts significantly amended its Maternity Leave Act in 2015 when it became known as the Parental Leave Act. Among other things, the Act expands coverage to men, requires employers to provide the leave to full...
Late last year, the Department of Family and Medical Leave released proposed revisions to the Massachusetts Paid Family and Medical Leave Act (PFML) regulations. As expected, at the beginning of January 2023, the...
The Texas House just passed the Creating a Respectful and Open World for Natural Hair (CROWN) Act, which would make discrimination based on certain hairstyles an unlawful employment practice. Read on. What is the CROWN...
We falsely think that we are doing our jobs as managers by giving performance feedback—constructive or otherwise—to employees. Not so, according to Marcus Buckingham and Ashley Goodall in their article, “The Feedback...
Employers with a policy that requires a vacant position to be filled by the most qualified applicant can now breathe more easily after the U.S. 5th Circuit Court of Appeals (whose rulings apply to all Texas employers)...
Take great caution in tinkering with the job duties and requirements of an exempt employee. A miscalculation can result in the loss of exempt status and liability for unpaid overtime. For an employer who gambled and won...
Many companies accumulate trade secrets, such as pricing schemes, business plans, and production shortcuts, but they don’t want competitors to tap into this private reserve of knowledge. The easiest way for a competitor...
Q What are our legal obligations to an employee who fell and injured himself at work but refused medical attention when the ambulance arrived? Even when an employee refuses medical treatment after a work injury, you...
When determining how to compensate nonexempt employees, employers have a variety of options. Paying an hourly rate is certainly the most common, but other methods include salary, commissions, daily rates, and piece-rate...
The U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) recently issued an opinion letter regarding permanent Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) leave and how it affects employers. ‘Indefinite period of time’ On February 9, 2023, the DOL...
Pregnancy discrimination is currently prohibited under the Pregnancy Discrimination Act (PDA)—which modified Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964—and under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). Employers need...
In a recent decision, the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) under President Joe Biden reversed two decisions issued by the Trump Board that had permitted fairly broad confidentiality and nondisparagement provisions...
For several years there has been a move to narrow or potentially eliminate noncompete clauses in employment contracts. Various states have imposed a variety of limitations, including prohibiting the process of blue...
When COVID-19 sent many workers home and left once-bustling office space eerily empty, most people considered the work-from-home arrangement temporary. But as the pandemic dragged on, both employees and employers found...