COVID-19

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We recently published an update to our 50-state Shelter-In-Place / Reopening Tracker.

Please see HERE. This is updated weekly.

For your convenience, here is a summary of the major updates from around the country:

  • The Governors of Illinois, Georgia, Mississippi, New Hampshire, Utah and Wyoming extended their emergency declaration orders and/or the duration of

…

Last week Governor Newsom signed three important bills into law:

  1. SB 1159: Expands Presumption of Workers’ Compensation Liability for COVID-19 Illness Claims

SB 1159 expands access to workers’ compensation by creating a rebuttable presumption of compensable injury for front line workers — health care workers, firefighters and peace officers. The presumption, while rebuttable, makes…

Big thanks to Kim Sartin in our London office for her contributions to this post.

As many businesses start to reopen, and travel restrictions are lifted in some locations, employers are gearing up for the inevitable question — when can employees travel? At the moment, we’re certainly seeing companies re-starting business travel that is deemed…

We recently published an update to our 50-state Shelter-In-Place / Reopening Tracker.

Please see HERE. This is updated weekly.

For your convenience, here is a summary of the major updates from around the country:

  • The Governors of Connecticut, Colorado, Kentucky, Louisiana, South Carolina and Vermont extended their emergency declaration orders and/or the duration of

…

California’s latest move on the COVID-19 front is an attempt to fill the gap left by the federal Families First Coronavirus Response Act (FFCRA) – and requires larger employers to act immediately. The FFCRA – which mandates paid sick and FMLA leave for designated COVID-19 reasons – does not apply to employers with 500 or more employees. The FFCRA also allows employers of certain health care workers and emergency responders to exclude those employees from its coverage.

On September 10, 2020, Governor Newsom closed these FFCRA loopholes for California-based employees by signing A.B. 1867 into law. The new statute takes effect immediately, and by September 20, 2020, requires employers to provide up to 80 hours of “COVID-19 supplemental paid sick leave” to the following “covered workers”:

  • California-based employees of larger employers (500 or more employees in the U.S.);
  • Specified “food sector workers” (A.B. 1867 effectively codifies Governor’s Newsom’s existing Executive Order already granting paid COVID-19 paid sick leave to these workers); and
  • Health care workers and emergency responders who were excluded from FFCRA by their employers.

A.B. 1867 does two other things:

  • It requires employers to allow employees who work in food facilities, as defined in Section 113789 of the Health and Safety Code, to wash their hands every 30 minutes and additionally as needed, and
  • It creates a new mediation pilot program under which small employers (5 to 19 employees) may request mediation through the Department of Fair Employment and Housing (DFEH) within 30 days of receiving a right to sue notice for alleged violations of the California Family Rights Act (CFRA), the state law equivalent of the FMLA.

Interestingly, nothing in A.B. 1867 expressly limits the new COVID-19 sick leave benefit to California-based employees, but California’s ability to regulate employment relationships generally stops at its borders.

A.B. 1867’s requirements are detailed below.Continue Reading Larger Employers Must Act Quickly To Address California’s New Supplemental Paid Sick Leave Law, Including Making Changes to Paystubs Within 10 Days

With special thanks to Amy Greer and Jennifer Klass for contributing to this post.

COVID-19 was officially declared a pandemic in the US on March 13, 2020. Yet, even now, as we are over six months in to the COVID-19 pandemic crisis in the US, employers still continue to face challenges when navigating the sometimes daily changes in health and safety orders, updates from federal agencies, court decisions, and the proliferation of lawsuits. One of the key decision points for many employers is when to reopen, what should drive that decision, the legal risk of “getting it wrong” and how to mitigate that risk. Unlike retailers and restaurants, companies in the financial industry have largely avoided shutting down operations. However, that does not mean they have fully reopened. Where does the financial industry stand in its reopening? What should financial services companies be concerned about in terms of COVID-19 related guidance and recommendations, legal claims by employees, and how can companies mitigate these claims? What are specific COVID-19 related compliance issues unique to investment advisors and broker-dealers? We share our insights below.Continue Reading For Financial Industry Employers During the Pandemic, “Risk” Takes on a Different Meaning

On September 3, 2020, the DOL sent a revised proposed rule regarding paid leave under the Families First Coronavirus Response Act (FFCRA) to the Office of Management and Budget for its review, according to an OMB posting. Though the OMB posting does not disclose the proposed rule’s contents, it is widely believed that the…

Employers must pay for all hours they know or “have reason to believe” employees worked. But can employers simply rely on teleworking employees to report all of their hours worked, or must they instead investigate whether their employees have accurately reported their work time? With the huge increase in teleworking since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, this question should be top-of-mind for employers.

On August 24, 2020, the US Department of Labor issued Field Assistance Bulletin No. 2020-5 (FAB) to clarify an employer’s obligations in determining whether teleworking employees have accurately reported their work time. In short, the employer is not required to comb through every cell phone or computer login record to look for unreported work time that the employer neither knew of nor had reason to believe had been worked. As long as the employer provides employees with reasonable time-reporting procedures and does not otherwise impede or discourage reporting, its failure to compensate employees for unreported and unknown hours of work is not an FLSA violation. The FAB and some key takeaways for employers are summarized below.Continue Reading A “Reason to Believe”: DOL Says the Obligation to Determine Remote Employees’ Hours of Work is “Not Boundless”

As the pandemic necessitates continued physical distancing, tech companies worldwide have turned to remote working to ensure the stability of their businesses. This episode of TMT Talk explores the working-from-home phenomenon from a data privacy, tax, and employment standpoint. Join Kate Alexander, Michael Brewer, Michiel Kloes, and Flavia Rebello as they share…

We recently published an update to our 50-state Shelter-In-Place / Reopening Tracker.

Baker McKenzie has a team in place that has been advising clients real-time on these most critical issues since the first orders were enacted. We are pleased to provide this Tracker, which identifies the relevant state-wide shelter-in-place orders and their related expiration dates,…