Employment Law This Week

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Featured on Employment Law This Week – New York City has enacted “fair workweek” legislation.

Mayor Bill de Blasio has signed a package of bills into law limiting scheduling flexibility for fast-food and retail employers. New York City is the third major city in the United States, after San Francisco and Seattle, to enact this kind of legislation. The bills require fast-food employers to provide new hires with good-faith estimates of the number of hours that they will work per week and to pay workers a premium for scheduling changes made less than 14 days in advance.

Watch the segment below, featuring our colleague Jeffrey Landes from Epstein Becker Green. Also see our colleague John O’Connor’s recent post, “New York City Tells Fast Food Employees: ‘You Deserve a Break Today’ by Enacting New Fair Workweek Laws,” on the Hospitality Labor and Employment Law blog.

The new episode of Employment Law This Week offers a year-end roundup of the biggest employment, workforce, and management issues in 2016:

  • Impact of the Defend Trade Secrets Act
  • States Called to Ban Non-Compete Agreements
  • Paid Sick Leave Laws Expand
  • Transgender Employment Law
  • Uncertainty Over the DOL’s Overtime Rule and Salary Thresholds
  • NLRB Addresses Joint Employment
  • NLRB Rules on Union Organizing

Watch the episode below and read EBG’s Take 5 newsletter, “Top Five Employment, Labor & Workforce Management Issues of 2016.”

The top story on Employment Law This Week – San Francisco and New York state break new ground on paid parental leave.

Starting in 2017, businesses with more than 50 employees in San Francisco will be required to give new parents six weeks off, fully paid. San Francisco is the first city in the U.S. to require full salary for new mothers and fathers during their time off. Meanwhile, New York state has passed the most comprehensive paid parental leave policy in the country. New York state’s legislation mandates 12 weeks of partially paid leave for all new parents by 2021.

View the episode below and learn more about the New York legislation in an EBG Act Now Advisory or the San Francisco legislation in an earlier blog post.

The top story on Employment Law This Week is the EEOC’s filing of its first sexual orientation bias suits.

Last year, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission interpreted Title VII of the Civil Rights Act to prohibit discrimination against an individual for sexual orientation. The EEOC concluded that sexual orientation discrimination is a form of unlawful gender discrimination. This month, the agency filed two landmark federal lawsuits seeking to enforce its interpretation of the statute for the first time. The agency is suing on behalf of workers at a company in Baltimore and one in Pittsburgh for harassment based on sexual orientation. Our colleague Jeffrey Landes, from Epstein Becker Green, has more.

View the episode below or read more about these landmark lawsuits in an earlier post on this blog.

The top story on Employment Law This Week is the EEOC’s announcement of new nationwide disclosure rules for position statements.

Retroactive to January 1, 2016, employers should expect the disclosure of their position statements to the charging party, even if the statement contains confidential information. Under the new policy, complainants have the right to request access to the statement and respond to it, but any response from the charging party will not be disclosed to the employer in turn. Lauri Rasnick, a Member of the Firm at Epstein Becker Green, has more on what this means for employers.

View the episode below or read more about the EEOC’s announcement in an earlier blog post.

The top story on Employment Law This Week is the EEOC’s release of fiscal year 2015 enforcement data.

Retaliation claims were once again the number one type of charge filed, up 5% from last year for a total of 44.5% of all charges. Race claims were second, making up 34.7% of claims. 30.2% of charges alleged disability discrimination, up 6% from last year. Ronald M. Green from Epstein Becker Green (EBG) gives more detail on what’s behind the numbers.

View the episode below or read recent comments about the EEOC’s release, from David W. Garland of EBG.

Employment Law This Week – Epstein Becker Green’s new video program – has a story about an effort to unite retailers against a restrictive scheduling law in Washington, D.C.

The National Retail Federation issued a letter urging the city council in D.C. to abandon new scheduling legislation for retailers and restaurants. The proposed law would require businesses to post schedules three weeks in advance, with heavy penalties if they make any changes to the posted schedule. The NRF argues that this legislation removes the benefit of flexibility for employees, and that it places businesses at a competitive disadvantage against similar companies in surrounding states.

See below to view the story.

Employment Law This Week – a new video program from Epstein Becker Green – has a story this week about on-call shifts and the challenges they’re facing in court.

Both BCBG and Forever 21 have been hit with class-action wage theft suits over on-call scheduling. Many retailers are ending this practice, including Urban Outfitters, which was cited for possible violations of New York’s requirement to pay hourly staff for at least four hours when they report for work.


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