Last week, the US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) released a comprehensive breakdown of the workplace discrimination charges received in 2019. The report shows that fiscal year 2019 continued the trend of declining numbers of pending charges. Interestingly, the number of charges filed in 2019 is the lowest intake in any fiscal year since at least 1997. While there may be any number of explanations for the decrease, one possibility is that employees are turning to expanding state anti-discrimination laws and more active state administrative agencies rather than the EEOC.
While EEOC Report Shows Overall Decrease In Charges, Retaliation Continues To Be Top Charge
In a significant decision for the service provider community, this month the National Labor Relations Board dismissed a claim that an employer was required to provide its employees’ union the service contracts it had with its customer. G4S Security Solutions USA, Inc. 369 NLRB No. 7 (2020). The panel decision was unanimous. Notably, however, the decision left open the possibility that a union could require the production of a service agreement if it could demonstrate the agreement was relevant to bargaining.
Public school teachers, police, firefighters, and other state and local government employees accept their jobs with the understanding that their relatively low salaries are backed up by excellent pension benefits. In July 2019, Moody’s Investors Service estimated that U.S. public pensions are underfunded by $4.4 trillion. U.S. public pension underfunding is larger than the economy of most developed countries.
2019 kept US employers on their toes. From intensifying scrutiny of independent contractor relationships, data privacy changes, and hostility to arbitration agreements to continued pressure to examine pay data, increasing employee activism and politically charged discourse in the workplace, it has been a busy year!
Join us in our Toronto office for our Client Appreciation and Learning Event on January 30, 2020.