Littler Principal Cindy-Ann Thomas and her special guest, author and Professor of Sociology at Washington University in St. Louis, Adia Harvey Wingfield, explore:

Paul Bateman and Erin Webber share how Bateman’s new role will encourage Littler’s social justice initiatives.

Law360

View Article (Subscription required.)

Ole Kristian Olsby and Nina Elisabeth Thjømøe explain Norway’s new Anti-discrimination Tribunal.

International Law Office (ILO)

View Article (Subscription required.)

Jeanine Conley Daves hosts a conversation between Tom Bender and Shin-I Lowe. They discuss the importance of mentorship, what a successful mentorship relationship looks like, and how male mentor influences are equally important to women.
  

(March 22, 2021) – Littler, the world’s largest employment and labor law practice representing management, is pleased to announce new leadership for its ‘Ohana and Reunión affinity groups. Additionally, the firm’s Diversity & Inclusion (D&I) Council added six new members.

(March 23, 2021) – Littler, the world’s largest employment and labor law practice representing management, is pleased to announce that several of its attorneys have been selected for the 2021 Leadership Council on Legal Diversity (LCLD) Fellows and Pathfinders programs and the National Employment Law Council (NELC) Academy.

Erin Webber shares how inclusion, equity and diversity has positively impacted her legal career at Littler. 

L'Economia

View Article 

An effective way to increase diversity hiring is to require diverse candidate slates for interviewing. Such slates include at least two diverse or women candidates in the pool of finalists. Employers should take heed, however, because there are limits to which a recruiter or a staffing agency can go in building such a slate. Alyesha Dotson discusses the avenues to intentionally recruit for diversity in a fair and smart manner to avoid violating antidiscrimination laws.
  

Kimberly Doud of Littler’s Orlando office, Chelsea Lewis of Littler's Miami office, and Kameron Miller of Littler's Charleston office present episode one of the Allied Behavior podcast series. Allied Behavior is focused on cultivating conscious conversations about inclusion, equity, diversity, and allyship in a corporate environment. In this episode, Kimberly, Chelsea, and Kameron discuss the importance of effective allyship and provide suggestions to turn allyship into meaningful action in the workplace.
  

Littler's Chief Inclusion, Equity and Diversity Officer Paul Bateman leads a conversation with Shareholders Dionysia Johnson-Massie (Atlanta), LaToi Mayo (Lexington), Lindbergh Porter (San Francisco), and Charles Wilson (Houston) as they discuss the trail to Juneteenth, its importance and how various acts impacted slavery in the U.S.
  

Philadelphia, PA/ March 20, 2009 -- Littler Mendelson (Littler), the nation's largest employment and labor law firm representing management, is pleased to announce the arrival of shareholders Warren E. Fusfeld and Melissa B. Kurtzman to the firm’s Philadelphia office, both formerly of WolfBlock LLP.

An employer pays its managers an annual salary and in addition provides monthly advances based on an estimate of the incentive bonus the employee appears likely to have earned by the end of the year. However, if the employee's performance declines over time so that the earned bonus ends up being less than the amounts advanced over the course of the year, it seems obvious that the employer should be able to deduct the overpayments from future paychecks.

As many employers are on the way to normalizing their business practices and re-engaging their employees, they should not overlook the many potential pitfalls in the administration of their retirement, health and welfare plans and their executive compensation arrangements. The risks of missteps are high, and include loss of tax-qualification of retirement plans, penalty taxes in connection with the Affordable Care Act’s (ACA) employer mandate rules, other IRS penalties, employee lawsuits and Department of Labor enforcement actions.

UPDATE: Since publication, we made a clarifying edit concerning the reasons an employee will be able to use paid sick leave under the amended law.

The Washington state legislature and certain localities recently passed several bills affecting employers, some of which have already been signed into law. These measures address non-compete agreements, mandatory employer-sponsored meetings, immigration reporting, paid leave, and the minimum wage. Each new bill or ordinance is discussed below. 

New Law Expands and Clarifies Non-Compete Statute

As of July 1, 2024, the Foreign Labor Certification (FLC) Data Center website (FLCDataCenter.com) will be discontinued and will not be available for providing prevailing wage data for occupations. Prevailing wage information is required for permanent and temporary foreign labor certification processes as well as for various non-immigrant temporary work visas such as H-1B, H-1B1 and E-3.

To tackle illegal employment through subcontracting more effectively, the Flemish government improved chain liability, and introduced a duty of care. According to this duty of care, companies working with subcontractors in the Flemish Region are obliged to request certain data from these subcontractors (Cf. Decree of 27/10/2023).  

The Flemish Government's Implementing Decree was published in the Belgian Official Gazette on June 4, 2024, containing a checklist of the specific data to be requested. The decision will enter into force on January 1, 2025. 

Deepti Orekondy and Jorge R. Lopez discuss the new rights and protections provided under lllinois’ new Senate Bill 0508, which provides additional employment protections for individuals flagged by an employment eligibility verification system.

SHRM

View (Subscription required)

Michael Lotito said labor policy changes could be delayed in a second Trump administration depending on the shifting makeup at the NLRB.

Law360 Employment Authority

View (Subscription required)

The past year has brought sweeping changes to the world of work. Federal agencies finalized rules on minimum wage and overtime exemptions, union representation elections, pregnancy accommodations, OSHA inspections, and non-compete agreements. The Supreme Court scaled back agency rulemaking authority and lowered the bar for bringing discrimination claims. State legislatures expanded the patchwork of employment laws on a host of workplace topics. Meanwhile, the looming presidential election adds another layer of uncertainty to the mix.

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

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.

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.

*  *  *

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?

The White House on November 4 announced that the deadline for employers covered by the federal contractor vaccine requirement to comply with the vaccine mandate will be extended from December 8, 2021 to January 4, 2022.

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

We’re thinking about rolling out some IE&D initiatives – is that the same thing as an Affirmative Action Plan?

The short answer is no, and there is often confusion between an Affirmative Action Plan, or AAP, and more general and voluntary IE&D initiatives.

On August 24, 2023, the Office of Management and Budget approved a request from the U.S. Department of Labor’s Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs (OFCCP) to revise the “Itemized Listing” that OFCCP uses to collect information from federal contractors that are selected for supply or service audits. Among the changes that have been approved is a new requirement that audited contractors:

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.)

Andrea M. Kirshenbaum discusses the 2023-24 SCOTUS opinions that promise to reshape administrative law in the United States for decades to come.

The Legal Intelligencer

View (Subscription required)

Alex MacDonald discusses recent court decisions that criticized the way the NLRB operates and that could transform American labor law.

Washington Legal Foundation

View

In July, the Third Circuit upheld a District of New Jersey decision to throw out a withdrawal liability assessment, finding the multiemployer pension fund was barred from pursuing its claim because the fund unreasonably delayed notification of a withdrawal liability assessment for 12 years.

Withdrawal Liability Assessments Under ERISA

Joy Rosenquist talks about the impact of an executive order banning the use of salary history in hiring by federal agencies and contractors.

WorldatWork

View

Erin Webber talks about the importance of networks, mentors and benefits for women and working moms in law firms.

Denver Business Journal

View (Subscription required.)

Erin Webber explains how a remote environment requires more leadership responsibility, skills and choices.

The American Lawyer

View Article (Subscription required.) 

Largely overshadowed by the rise in COVID-19 deaths and the January 6, 2021, siege on the Capitol, the Criminal Antitrust Anti-Retaliation Act of 2019 (“the Act”) became law on December 23, 2020. See 15 U.S.C. § 7a-3. The Act, which Senator Chuck Grassley sponsored, prohibits employers from retaliating against individuals who report criminal antitrust violations to their employer or the federal government, or who participate in a federal governmental criminal antitrust investigation or proceeding.  

Background

On February 19, 2021, the U.S.

Jeanine Conley Daves and Alexa Laborda Nelson explain how employers can take steps to ensure they are in compliance with the recent COVID-19 relief plans and avoid potential whistleblower litigation.

Chief Executive

View Article (Subscription required.) 

Philip Berkowitz weighs in on the Anti-Money Laundering Act’s whistleblower protections that took effect this year.

SHRM Online

View (Subscription required.)

The recently enacted Anti-Money Laundering Act significantly increases the potential value of awards for whistleblowers under the Bank Secrecy Act. The challenge for a financial services employer is to establish that discipline against an employee in a compliance role is supported by evidence that the decision was based on the employee's incompetence or other inappropriate behavior, and that any whistleblowing activity he or she engaged in was not a consideration. Philip M. Berkowitz explores the issues in this edition of his Employment Issues column.

Devjani Mishra discusses employers coming up with COVID-19 safety rules that are appropriate for their own workplace.

Law360 Employment Authority

View (Subscription required.)