On March 21, 2023, and along party lines, the Michigan Legislature advanced a bill to the Governor’s desk to repeal the state’s 2013 right-to-work. The Governor signed the bill on March 23, 2023. The new law is expected to go into effect in April 2024.
In a case decided by the National Labor Relations Board (“NLRB” or “Board”) on February 23, 2023, provisions in separation and settlement agreements regarding non-disparagement and confidentiality may run afoul of the National Labor Relations Act (“NLRA” or “Act”). On March 22, 2023, in an effort to provide guidance as to the scope and impact of the decision, the NLRB’s General Counsel issued a Guidance for how its regional offices should evaluate these agreements going forward. The Guidance suggests that the decision has even broader ramifications than initially thought. As described below, the decision along with the Guidance should cause employers to pause before inserting many commonly used provisions in these types of agreements.
On March 7, 2023, a federal court in Pennsylvania issued a ruling denying a cannabis company’s motion to dismiss claims based on the federal Fair Labor Standards Act (the “FLSA”). The opinion in DeMarco et al. v. FarmaceuticalRC, LLC et al., W.D. Pa. Case No. 2022cv-1164, covers familiar ground in the realm of FLSA misclassification cases, and explains why the plaintiffs—who work as drivers ferrying defendants’ cannabis products along their supply chain—sufficiently pled their claims. Specifically, the court applied the six-factor test for determining whether a given worker is an employee or an independent contractor and found that plaintiffs had sufficiently alleged the existence of an employer-employee relationship.
Continue Reading Cannabis Employee Misclassification Case Moves Forward in Federal Court
In a move that will certainly elicit strong reactions from U.S. employers of foreign nationals, the Department of Homeland Security (“DHS”) is seeking up to 204% increases in filing fees for employment- and investment-based immigration applications to pay for processing asylum and refugee petitions.
These fee hikes will add to the already significant costs of petitioning to employ foreign nationals in the United States.
Continue Reading Proposed Immigration Filing Fee Increases to Fund Asylum Claim Processing
The Illinois general assembly kicked off 2023 off by passing the Paid Leave for All Workers Act (the “Act”). Governor Pritzker is expected to sign the bill later this year. Once signed, the Act will go into effect on January 1, 2024, and will make most Illinois private-sector employees eligible for up to 40 hours of paid time off per year.
Continue Reading Illinois Mandates “Any Purpose” Paid Leave for Most Employees Starting in 2024
In 2019 California enacted Assembly Bill 51 (AB51) that would impose criminal sanctions on employers who required employees to sign arbitration agreements as a condition of employment. From there, this highly controversial law has followed a circuitous route.
Employers in Michigan can breathe a sigh of relief in the wake of today’s opinion from the Michigan Court of Appeals ruling that the Michigan Legislature acted appropriately when it followed an “amend and adopt” strategy. Prior to that ruling, Michigan employers were faced with a February 20, 2023 deadline by which they would have to offer employees onerous earned sick time, as well as a higher minimum wage, as a result of an initiative that was adopted in 2018. The initiative-led legislation was amended by the legislature in a lame-duck session that resulted in a paid leave law and a minimum wage that were much less hostile to employers.
Where previous protections offered by the Americans with Disabilities Act, the Fair Labor Standards Act, and the Pregnancy Discrimination Act of 1978 fell short, employees were left to make hard choices between quitting their jobs or working in a position that did not fully accommodate their medical needs while pregnant or after giving birth. Although some state laws fill those needs, many states do not provide any protection. During 2022, two important protections were signed into law by President Joe Biden: the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act, and the Providing Urgent Maternal Protections for Nursing Mothers Act. The new protections put in place by these acts ensure that pregnant employees will not suffer because of their pregnancy, but instead be provided the proper and necessary time off and accommodations after giving birth.
Continue Reading New Federal Protections for Pregnant Workers
Dykema attorneys Robert Boonin and Sean Darke will be presenting the above entitled webinar for the Michigan Chamber of Commerce on January 18, 2023. They will address how the legal landscape for employers has changed since the pandemic, the 2020 election, and 2022 mid-term elections, which may surprise many employers and which may require major changes to their approaches to employment relations. The webinar, which will have interactive Q&A, will highlight the biggest developments and provide participants guidance on how to reduce their liability going forward, and to otherwise avoid unwittingly stepping on a legal land mines triggering significant liability.
Continue Reading What Employers Need to Know Now! The Top Legal Changes and Issues for 2023!
On October 20, 2022, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) unveiled a new version of the “Know Your Rights: Workplace Discrimination is Illegal” poster which updates and replaces the previous “EEO is the Law” poster. This poster also supersedes an October 19, 2022, version of the “Know Your Rights” poster.
Covered employers are required to