Employment Law

House legislation would expand paid family leave

05/19/2025

A bipartisan group of members of Congress have introduced two pieces of legislation that would expand access to paid family leave. The product of two years of work by the House Paid Family Leave Working Group, the twin initiatives would facilitate federal support of state programs.

Use these 3 factors to review ‘stay-or-pay’ agreements

05/15/2025

Employers should review their agreements to ensure that under state law, they constitute valid contracts. The answer will depend on each state’s contract and other laws. To increase the likelihood that a stay-or-pay contract will pass muster, review it with an eye toward these factors.

Understand the difference between legal and illegal DEI

05/15/2025

Quotas and preferences based on protected characteristics are unlawful. But what if you want to improve representation of marginalized groups in your workplace, and do it legally? Thankfully, the EEOC has long offered guidance.

Offer health benefits to all, regardless of age

05/12/2025

Under the Age Discrimination in Employment Act and the Older Workers Benefit Protection Act, it’s illegal to offer different benefits to workers ages 40 and older than you offer to younger employees. That’s true even if it costs you more to provide the same benefits to older workers.

Watch out for dress codes that could trigger ADA lawsuits

05/09/2025

Enforce your dress and grooming code too rigidly and you could find yourself on the losing end of a failure-to-accommodate lawsuit. Here’s a case showing that common medical problems may require employers to bend their dress-code rules to accommodate employee disabilities.

Beware unintended consequences of sharing pay info

05/09/2025

It’s increasingly difficult for employers to keep employees from finding out how much their co-workers are paid. However, a new study shows the unintended consequences when employers tell employees where they stand on pay.

New DOL guidance invokes old classification standard, making it easier to treat workers as contractors

05/07/2025

The Department of Labor will no longer enforce its 2024 independent contractor rule, issued during the Biden administration, which favored classifying workers as employees. Instead, it will rewind the classification clock, emphasizing an old standard that makes it much easier to consider workers to be contractors.

Almost all OFCCP enforcement staff placed on leave

05/05/2025

Most employees who handle enforcement at the Department of Labor’s Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs have been placed on administrative leave, according to Bloomberg Law. The move affected employees in OFCCP’s national office in Washington, D.C. and five of six regional offices across the country.

Cure intermittent leave headaches by relying on FMLA certification

05/05/2025

Unfortunately, intermittent FMLA leave is easy for employees to abuse. Fortunately, the FMLA certification documentation that employees must provide is the key to easing the HR headaches that intermittent leave often causes.

Be better! Anti-harassment training, half-hearted investigations aren’t enough

05/02/2025

Why aren’t anti-harassment policies more effective at preventing harassment? The answer may lie in ineffective training and the failure of employers to follow their own policies.