Alexander MacDonald comments on the implications of SpaceX’s lawsuit against the NLRB, which alleges that the board violates constitutional separation of powers and due process protections by wielding different types of authority in the same case.

Bloomberg Law

View (Subscription required.)

Alyesha Asghar discusses the potential impact for employers after the Supreme Court’s decision regarding Title VII in Muldrow v. St Louis.

Law360 Employment Authority

View (Subscription required.)

Jim Paretti comments on a recent boost in EEOC commissioner charges.

Bloomberg Law

View (Subscription required.) 

Robert W. Pritchard comments on the dismissal of a longstanding dispute between Uber and its former drivers.

The Legal Intelligencer

View (Subscription required) 

Bradford J. Kelley and Michael J. Lotito discuss key steps to consider when business leaders work with their teams and HR departments to develop political speech policies and enforcement strategies.

Chief Executive

View

Judy Iriye, Kate Pitzak and Chase Parongao discuss Hawaii’s Captive Audience Prohibition Act (SB 2715), which restricts employers from requiring employees to attend employer-sponsored meetings.

SHRM

View (Subscription required)

In addition to the information and consultation obligations linked to their general responsibilities,¹ Social and Economic Committees (“Comité Social et Economique” or "CSE") in French workplaces, which replace and merge all the employee representative bodies, staff representatives, works council, and health, safety and working conditions committee, must be informed and consulted in the event of a “restructuring and downsizing.”² What is their scope of intervention?

Cases Requiring Consultation

Isha Malhotra, Trent Sutton and Nancy Zhang offer guidelines for in-house counsel when advising a business on a restructure in APAC.

ACC Docket

View 

In Pham v.

Compliance with the New York Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification (NY WARN) Act just got harder (again). On June 21, 2023, the New York Department of Labor’s amendments to the NY WARN regulations took effect and some of the changes are sweeping.

Employer Coverage

Under the amended regulations, the definition of a covered employer is expanded to count not just employees at a single site of employment in the state, but also employees who work remotely but are “based at the employment site.”

New Notice Content Requirements

Governor Philip D. Murphy recently signed Assembly Bill 4682 / Senate Bill 2389, establishing various employment protections for specific “service employees” during changes of ownership. This bill goes into effect on October 22, 2023—90 days from signing.

Amber Spataro and David Ostern examine New Jersey’s new Assembly Bill 4682, which establishes various employment protections for specific "service employees" during changes of ownership.

SHRM Online

View (Subscription required.)

On October 26, 2023, Ontario’s Bill 79, Working for Workers Act, 2023 (Bill 79) received Royal Assent and came into force. The statutes amended by Bill 79 include the Employment Standards Act, 2000 (ESA), the Occupational Health and Safety Act (OHSA) and the Employment Protection for Foreign Nationals Act, 2009 (EPFNA).

ESA Amendments

Bill 79 made the following amendments to the ESA:

Jorge Sales Boyoli weighs in on a reform that was almost passed in Mexico, which “violates the most sacred thing that a worker has: his salary.” 

El Heraldo de Mexico

View

Jorge Sales Boyoli talks about the outsourcing law came into force last year, who will receive profits and the new challenges that have come with it. 

El Heraldo de México

View

Eli Freedberg discusses New York’s controversial new pay transparency law.

Law360 Employment Authority

View (Subscription required.)

Devjani Mishra, Barry Hartstein and Michael Lotito provide insight into the findings of Littler’s Annual Employer Survey and several workplace issues and the fast-changing regulations facing employers. (Subscription required.)

Human Resource Executive

View

Lee Schreter comments on the U.S. Department of Labor’s proposed overtime rule, which is tentatively slated to be released in October, and the Fair Labor Standards Act’s independent contractor rule.

SHRM Online

View (Subscription required.)

While significant bills impacting Connecticut employers were signed into law, proposed employer mandates on pay transparency, paid sick leave, and predictive scheduling failed to gain the necessary votes for passage in 2023. Here are some of the year’s notable legislative developments.

What Passed . . .

Effective October 1, 2023, unless otherwise noted:

With 2023 in the rearview mirror, Connecticut employers may want to confirm they have implemented the necessary changes to address legislative developments that became effective January 1, 2024.

Connecticut Minimum Wage

Emily Linn talks with Breanne Martell about the amicus brief she assisted with to seek justice for a neurodiverse individual, Robert Leslie Roberson, who was convicted of murder based on science that has now been debunked.

Our Littler attorneys demonstrate their pro bono commitment by providing significant pro bono efforts to community organizations. These services cover a variety of areas, depending on the interests of individual attorneys. Overall, the firm values, encourages and respects the community-minded and pro bono efforts of our lawyers and staff.
  

In honor of this year’s Asian American, Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander Heritage Month theme “Advancing Leaders Through Innovation,” Littler associate Ed Tsui spoke with Littler shareholder, Lavanga Wijekoon, who shared how he has been able to advance his practice at the firm through innovation.
  

Effective June 19, 2024, New York employers will be required to provide up to 30 minutes of paid lactation breaks to employees each time an employee has a reasonable need to express breast milk at work. This change to New York Labor Law Section 206-c is set forth in Bill No. A08806C, part of the New York State budget bill, which Governor Kathy Hochul signed into law on April 19, 2024. Specifically, amended Section 206-c provides:

A properly structured and implemented Affinity Group (AKA Employee Resource Group) is a powerful tool in an employer’s Diversity Equity & Inclusion tool belt. But, unwary employers may risk violating the National Labor Relations Act if they bargain with an Affinity Group. In this month’s podcast, Alyesha Asghar Dotson discusses the do’s and don’ts of interacting with an active Affinity Group within your organization.
  

Jim Paretti discusses the rescinding of a controversial EEOC rule that would have required the agency to share more information with employers credibly accused of discrimination during the conciliation process.

Law360 Employment Authority

View (Subscription required.)

(July 12, 2021) – Littler, the world’s largest employment and labor law practice representing management, has received Gold Standard Certification from the Women in Law Empowerment Forum (WILEF) for the 11th consecutive year. WILEF grants Gold Standard status to firms that meet objective criteria concerning the number of women among equity partners, in firm leadership positions and in the ranks of their most highly compensated partners. Littler is one of only five firms that have been awarded Gold Standard Certification every year since WILEF began the award in 2011.

Johane Severin discusses the growing practice of “stay-or-pay” contracts, which some argue force workers to pay if they resign ahead of a stipulated date.

International Employment Lawyer

View (Subscription required.)

In the Chancellor of the Exchequer’s Autumn Statement, Jeremy Hunt promised that “the government will expand the business Visitor rules to allow businesspeople to engage in a wider range of permitted activities and paid engagements, to take effect from January 2024. The government will also explore further reforms to the business visitor rules during 2024.”

The first of these changes took effect from January 31, 2024. They were not a major reform of the business and other permitted activities that can be carried out on a visit visa, but there are some important changes.

Introducing the latest UK Immigration Rules Statement of Changes, Legal Immigration Minister Tom Pursglove announced that they will “deliver the biggest ever cut to migration over the course of this year.”

The Statement of Changes HC590 will have serious consequences for employers from April 4, 2024, as well as for British citizens and settled residents bringing partners to live with them in the UK from April 11.

Alexander Thomas MacDonald explains how, through a century of trial and error, labor law has been wildly successful in giving us the most peaceful labor market in history. 

The Federalist Society

View

Alex MacDonald discusses how a new study reveals how some union practices prioritize maintaining their political influence over delivering benefits.

U.S. Chamber of Commerce

View

Shannon Meade and Michael Lotito discuss key issues that employers are facing now, according to Littler’s Workplace Policy Institute’s 2024 Labor Day Report.

Human Resource Executive

View (Subscription required)

Welcome back to our World Cup series, where we compare various aspects of labor and employment law in some of the participating countries.¹  We kicked off Parts One and Two of this series with vacation and sick leave entitlements.

Jeff Nowak and Rich Falcone talk through a hypothetical HR dilemma involving a workplace complaint.

SHRM Online

View (Subscription required.)

Jesús Lahera offers a detailed analysis of Spain’s Whistleblowing Directive and its impact on employers and employees.

Observatorio de RRHH

View

Protection of whistleblowers has been on the EU’s agenda for quite some time. Four years ago the EU issued the EU Whistleblowing Directive throughout its Member States.

UPDATE: This law took effect on February 8, 2024.

*  *  *

Dear Littler,

Denise Visconti and Trish Martin discuss the steps company boards and senior management can take to support their organization’s pay equity efforts. 

Directors & Boards

View

2024 has been a fruitful year in the UK for whistleblowing law so far, with three key cases employers should be aware of:

Can an external job applicant qualify as a whistleblower?

One of the very first questions to ask when presented with a whistleblowing claim in the UK is whether the person who made the disclosure was entitled to protection. The Employment Rights Act 1996 protects employees from dismissal, and protects employees and workers from detriment, for having made protected disclosures. But does it cover job applicants?

It was all very well to say ‘Drink me,’ but the wise little Alice was not going to do that in a hurry. ‘No, I’ll look first,’ she said, ‘and see whether it’s marked “poison” or not’; for […] she had never forgotten that, if you drink much from a bottle marked ‘poison,’ it is almost certain to disagree with you, sooner or later.

                                           —Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland, Chapter 1, Down the Rabbit Hole

Alecia Winfield explains what diversity means in corporate America and says the ‘Black Lives Matter’ protests fueled a drive for change in corporate America, similar to that of the #MeToo movement. 

Apparel Resources

View

Alexander MacDonald says Jarkesy's biggest effect on the NLRB might come not from what the court ruled, but from what it decided not to rule on.

Law360 Employment Authority

View (Subscription required.)