Laws & Regulations

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As you may know, I am a die-hard management lawyer. For example, I recently saw a production of J.B. Priestly’s, “An Inspector Calls.” The titular Inspector forces various members of a wealthy family in Edwardian England to examine their roles in putting a young woman on the path to suicide. In particular, the father had fired the young woman from his factory for being a labor agitator. I know I was supposed to sympathize with the young woman, but I frankly thought the father had behaved in an completely Baby Bottleunderstandable manner (although, of course, it would now be a violation of the National Labor Relations Act to do so). My husband told me, “Well, I guess you’re in the right profession.”

But every now and then, there is a case that just smacks of unfairness to me, even though it may be legally correct. Frederick v. State of New Hampshire was just such a case.

The employee’s new baby had difficulties with bottle feeding. In addition, the employee’s doctor provided a letter explaining that the employee should breastfeed as must as possible to minimize her anxiety disorder. In preparation for returning to work, the employee asked for either an extended break time to go to her baby’s nearby daycare center to breastfeed, or to have her baby brought to her and to be allowed to breastfeed her baby in the employer-provided lactation room.Continue Reading No Protection for a Breastfeeding Mother?

So as Halloween approaches, a recent religious accommodations case involving the “mark of the beast” seemed seasonally appropriate.

For those of you not so familiar with the Bible, the Book of Revelation tells the story of a satanic beast that comes out of the earth and forces all humans to worship another beast coming from the sea. The worshipers are marked on their right hands or their foreheads with the number “666” – i.e. the “mark of the beast.”Mark of the Beast

Several years ago, a client implemented a biometric timekeeping system, which used a hand scanning procedure. One of the employees objected to using the new system on religious grounds, based on his fear that the system would either imprint or reveal the mark of the beast (it wasn’t terribly clear exactly what the concern was). My partner, Mike McGuire, noted that the mark appears on the right hand, however, and the employee could simply use his left hand on the scanner. Well, that seemed to fix the problem – a pretty simple solution, wasn’t it?

Unfortunately, it didn’t work out so easily for another company – Consol Energy. In that case, an employee who was an Evangelical Christian objected to the biometric scanning system for the same reasons as our client’s employee. Consol actually provided a letter to the employee from the company that made the system, explaining that the Book of Revelation specifies that the mark will appear only on the right hand (or forehead), and therefore the left hand may be used for scanning purposes.Continue Reading Religious Accommodations – A Beastly Concern

There’s a part of me that thoroughly enjoys a smackdown between government agencies. (The other part of me is screaming at the government inefficiency and waste of my tax dollars). Here’s a good one.

As most of you know, the U.S. Department of Labor released its proposed revisions to the overtime regulations under the Fair Labor Standards Act. The current regulations set forth three tests for exempt status: (1) the employee must be paid on a salary basis; (2) the salary threshold must be at least $455 per week ($23,660 per year); and (3) the employee must meet duties tests specific to the exemption in questions (executive, administrative or professional). As we discussed (with a highly raised eyebrow) in a previous blog, the proposed regulations contain only one actual change to these tests – an increase in the salary level to over $50,000 per year, with yearly increases thereafter.

The public was invited to submit comments on the proposed regulations – 289,932 individuals and entities took them up on that invitation. One of those was the Small Business Administration – another federal agency. The SBA has an Office of Advocacy, which represents the interests of small businesses before Congress and other federal agencies.Continue Reading Don’t Invite the SBA and the DOL to the Same Party!

As those companies who are required to submit an EEO-1 form know, the extended deadline for the annual submission this year (2015) is coming up soon – October 30 (Normally it’s September 30 each year). Generally speaking, covered employers must report on the form, by establishment/company totals and job group (e.g. first level officials and managers, professionals, administrative support employees, etc.), the number of employees by sex and race or ethnic category. The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission requires most private employers with 100 or more employees to submit the EEO-1 form, while the Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs requires most government contractors with 50 or more employees and $50,000 or more in federal contracts to submit this form.

Originally on the EEO-1 form, multi-racial employees had to be designated a single racial or ethnic category. For example, an individual who had a Black father and a White mother would have to be identified as solely White or solely Black. In 2005, however, the EEO-1 form was revised to include new racial and ethnic categories, including “Two or More Races.” This change was entirely appropriate in our increasingly multi-racial society, and permitted a more accurate reflection of the racial makeup of a company’s workplace.

But what about sex? There has been a lot of recent media attention to gender identity issues (in case you’ve been living in a cave) – and the choice of gender identity is apparently far broader than I could have possible imagined. As Slate reported, in July, Facebook began allowing its users to self-identify as other than just “male” or “female.” In fact, Slate counted 56 options!!! (Whaaaaat?!!!  Naïve me.) Many of these terms were ones that I had never heard of before – agender/neutrois, gender questioning, intersex, non-binary, pangender, two-spirit….Continue Reading Two or More Genders? Gender Identity and the EEO-1 Form

On Labor Day 2015, President Obama issued an Executive Order that requires certain government contractors and subcontractors to provide up to 7 days of paid sick leave per year. This leave may be used for illness or injury; medical appointments or treatment; caring for an injured or ill family member, or obtaining medical treatment for…

So I’ve noticed that the EEOC likes to adopt major policy shifts in sneaky ways.  For example, when the EEOC first decided that pregnancy-related impairments may be disabilities under the amended Americans with Disabilities Act, it didn’t put in the revised regulations, but slid it into the Q&A document on the revised regulations.  When the…

The U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Obergefell v. Hodges, in which it held that same-sex couples have a constitutional right to marry, made headlines.  This decision has a practical impact on employers – particularly on those with operations in states that to date had not recognized the validity of same-sex marriages.

There are a…

Employers did not need another reason to complain about the burdens of the Affordable Care Act (“ACA”). Most of us know that the law includes onerous obligations on employers that have made human resources and benefits personnel’s jobs increasingly difficult. For example, you have to figure out if the law applies to your organization (how…