You may have been waiting with bated breath after we reported last month on the possible amendment to the Illinois Equal Pay Act. Well, at last Governor Pritzker put pen to paper, and the IEPA amendment will officially go into effect on September 29, 2019.
Continue Reading Illinois Becomes Latest To Ban Salary History Inquiries
Chicago became the latest city to adopt a “predictive scheduling” ordinance: the Chicago Fair Workweek Ordinance.Effective July 1, 2020, employers subject to the Ordinance must provide advance notice of work schedules to covered employees. If changes are made to the posted schedule, employers must pay additional wages, “predictability pay,” as a penalty. This penalty applies to both increases and reductions of shifts.
The Ordinance is similar to ordinances in other major cities such as New York, Philadelphia, San Francisco and Seattle. The stated goal of the new regulation is to provide predictability and stability to Chicago workers. It requires careful review as the regulation is rife with exceptions and exclusions.
As detailed in prior posts, in January, the Illinois Supreme Court held that a plaintiff need not plead an actual injury beyond a per se statutory violation to state a claim for statutory liquidated damages or injunctive relief under the Illinois Biometric Information Privacy Act (BIPA). While recent decisions applying BIPA have been largely Illinois-based, the Ninth Circuit recently applied BIPA in Patel v. Facebook to affirm a lower court’s ruling that plaintiffs in the ongoing Facebook BIPA class action alleged a concrete injury-in-fact to confer Article III standing and that the class was properly certified.
The Ninth Circuit is the first federal circuit court to conclude that a plaintiff alleging a BIPA violation has standing for purposes of Article III of the US Constitution. The ruling makes it easier for plaintiffs to certify BIPA class actions, within and outside of Illinois. Continue Reading The Ninth Circuit Clears The Way For BIPA Class Actions
The NLRB recently determined that merely discrediting an employer’s justification for a union activist’s termination (a pretext finding) could be insufficient to demonstrate the termination was unlawful. Electrolux Home Products, 368 NLRB No. 34 (2019). This outcome was preordained by the NLRB’s decision in Wright Line, 251 NLRB 1083 (1980) and was reinforced as an acceptable legal analysis by the Supreme Court in a decision under Title VII, St. Mary’s Honor Center v. Hicks, 509 US 502 (1993). The logic of the rule found its voice in ABF Freight Systems v. NLRB, 510 US 317 (1994) in which the Court determined it was permissible for the NLRB to order the reinstatement of an employee even after the employee lied under oath during the NLRB hearing, as to do otherwise, would “distract the Board” with collateral credibility disputes.
Continue Reading NLRB Holds Pretext Finding Standing Alone Insufficient
We’re pleased to share a recent Bloomberg article authored by our colleagues, Benjamin Ho and Caroline Pham. Ben and Caroline examine what the next generation of workers, Generation Z, expect from and can offer employers.
To get ahead of the curve in preparing for the change that this new generation will bring, check out their informative article here.
In June, Theresa May resigned as the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, saying it was in the “best interests of the country for a new prime minister” to lead Britain through the Brexit process.
In July, Boris Johnson won the Conservative Party’s leadership and he became the Prime Minister of the UK on July 24, 2019. Johnson pledged that the UK will leave the EU on October 31, “do or die,” accepting that a no-deal Brexit will happen if an agreement cannot be reached by then.
Johnson’s leadership is expected to have wide implications for how the United Kingdom will exit the European Union and the United Kingdom’s future immigration policy.
Following his appointment, Johnson appointed key cabinet members who will be responsible for driving forward his new Government’s policy on immigration. The Prime Minister will be asking the Migration Advisory Committee to create a plan based on the Australian points based model wherein the immigration criteria are set according to the wider needs of the economy.
Also:
As of August 1, companies doing business in Mexico can anticipate that unions will move quickly to legitimize existing collective agreements under a new government-issued protocol. Among other steps, the process includes a vote by covered employees to determine whether they approve the terms of the agreement. Collective agreements must be legitimized by May 1, 2023 or they will be terminated.
With thanks to our colleagues Salvador Pasquel, Liliana Hernandez and Carlos Martín del Campo Carrasco for this important update.
Congratulations and special thanks to Lisa Brogan (Chair), Editor, and Contributors James Baker, Jordan Faykus, and Jenna Neumann for their contributions to the 2019 Edition of The ABA Business Law Section, Recent Developments In Business and Corporate Litigation; Chapter 20: ERISA.
Job well done!
In May, we gathered nearly 100 inspiring leaders and thinkers from the business and academic world to predict and plan for the future of work. We are delighted to share key messages and insights from our fourth Global Employer Forum in the link below.
However, in case you’re short on time, here’s the tldr:
We are in a period of unprecedented transformation, driven by technological development, globalization and significant demographic changes. Our world is hyper-connected, and the pace of change is rapid, bringing social and political transformation and creating profound global shifts in expectations. Global employers must evolve at speed to meet these disruptive forces head-on and to thrive in this future of work.
Four key themes for employers emerged:
Continue Reading The Future Of Work: Insights From Our 2019 Global Employer Forum
In inspirational news, the UN’s work and labor agency, the International Labor Organization or ILO, adopted a “Violence and Harassment Convention” and “Violence and Harassment Recommendation” at the Centenary International Labor Conference in Geneva last month.
Continue Reading UN’s ILO Adopts Groundbreaking Convention On Workplace Harassment
