Yes, soon after I start recycling old blog posts next month about the liability risks that employees and their poor costume choices present for employers, all private-sector employers with 100 or more employees and federal contractors with 50 or more employees meeting specific criteria can start submitting demographic workforce data,…
Articles Posted in Human Resources Policies
Take me out to the ballgame.
Or, more precisely, my oldest son and I will be traveling from Philly to Cincinnati to watch the Marlins take on the Reds in a 12:35 matinee. I have no particular vested interest in the game other than clear skies and, perhaps, an adult beverage. Dinner recommendations for after the…
New NLRB standards will require even more employee handbook updates. (My kids’ college funds thank you.)
It was bound to happen sooner or later, tbh. As Presidents change from Democrat to Republican to Democrat, the complexion of the five-member (well, four now) National Labor Relations Board flips from union-friendly to management-friendly to union-friendly. And as the pendulum swings hard one way or the other, big “precedential”…
A new bill will greenlight federal employment for marijuana users
Tomorrow, I’ll be presenting “Weeding through the Haze: State and Federal Marijuana Laws and Implications” at the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission’s 2023 EXCEL Training Conference in Washington, DC. Between now and then, I’ll need to update my slide deck. That’s because, last week, Congressman Jamie Raskin (MD-08) and Congresswoman…
Your employees’ arbitration agreements may look a lot different soon (all crumpled up in a trash can)
On Wednesday, U.S. Senator Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY), Senate Judiciary Committee Ranking Member Lindsey Graham (R-SC), Senate Judiciary Committee Chair Dick Durbin (D-IL), and Representative Nancy Mace (R-SC) announced the introduction of the bipartisan Protecting Older Americans Act. The legislation would invalidate forced arbitration clauses that require employees to arbitrate claims…
She said the quiet part loud and the loud part, well, not at all.
The Americans with Disabilities Act does not protect employee use of illegal drugs. It does not prevent employers from testing applicants or employees for current illegal drug use or making employment decisions based on verifiable results. However, the ADA would protect an employee with a disability who fails a drug…
A day late and an age discrimination claim short
A 30-plus-year employee found out the hard way that missing a deadline — by just 24 hours — to arbitrate her claim against her former employer under the Age Discrimination in Employment Act is enough to lose it forever when her brief delay violates the plain terms of an arbitration…
Here’s how the feds will enforce pump at work protections for nursing workers
For over a decade, federal law has required most employers to provide a nursing mother with reasonable break time to express breast milk after the birth of her child for up to one year after childbirth. Last December, the PUMP for Nursing Mothers Act became law. The PUMP Act provides…
New federal legislation will end mandatory arbitration of race discrimination claims
Last year, President Biden signed the Ending Forced Arbitration of Sexual Assault and Sexual Harassment Act of 2021 into law. The name of the new law speaks for itself. Victims of sexual harassment or sexual assault at work that previously signed arbitration agreements can arbitrate their claims but don’t have…
A CBD user drug tests positive. Do we have to excuse it? Is she actually disabled?
The EEOC has guided employers to accommodate employee use of certain prescribed medications, and excuse failed drug tests that reflect the presence of those drugs — if it is done safely — because those individuals who test positive likely have an underlying disability. But, when employee self-medicate — like with…