New York’s employment landscape is undergoing sweeping changes. Recent legislation introduces new compliance challenges across nearly every facet of workplace regulation—from pay transparency to leave entitlements, wage and hour rules, employment agreements, and more.
Employers will need to revise policies, contracts, and day-to-day practices to stay compliant and avoid costly missteps. The time to act
Illinois has entered a pivotal year for workplace regulation. Employers face a series of new requirements, with significant and wide-ranging changes—from paid lactation breaks and NICU leave to expanded whistleblower protections, stricter contract rules, and new obligations around AI use in hiring and employment decisions. These new laws will reshape policies on employment agreements, leave
Effective February 6, 2024, all private employers in Texas will be prohibited from imposing or enforcing COVID-19 vaccine mandates as a condition of employment. While the practical impact of this new law may be limited, employers should still take note.
Newly-enacted SB 7 prohibits employers from adopting or enforcing a mandate requiring an employee
As forecasted in our recent blog Illinois Employer Midsummer “Roundup”: Eight to Know and Two to Watch, our two bills “to watch” are now law. On August 4, Governor Pritzker signed HB 2862 into law, effective immediately, imposing new obligations on employers who use temporary employees, including providing information on their regular employees’ compensation to staffing companies and documenting and keeping records of training provided to the staffing company employee.
And on August 11, Governor Pritzker signed HB 3129 into law, meaning Illinois employers with 15 or more employees have to include the “pay scale and benefits” in any job posting starting January 1, 2025.
We highlight a few key points of each new law below, and for more details, check out our Illinois Midsummer “Roundup” blog.Continue Reading Illinois Employers: Two Bills We Told You to Watch Are Now Law
We have all grown accustomed to hand sanitizer, 6-feet distance markings in hallways, face masks–and the back and forth of surging and waning COVID-19 levels in the workplace and the community. But with President Biden’s April 10 termination of the COVID-19 national emergency, can these pandemic mainstays–and employers’ pandemic policies and procedures–finally be relegated to a distant memory? Should they be? As Dr. Anthony Fauci said in a recent interview, “Everybody wants this outbreak behind us.”
With little fanfare, on April 10, President Biden quietly signed a GOP-led resolution terminating the COVID-19 national emergency. Separately, on May 1 the Biden Administration announced an end to the federal COVID-19 vaccination requirements for federal employees, federal contractors, and international travelers on May 11, the same day the COVID-19 Public Health Emergency ends. The US Department of Health and Human Services and the US Department of Homeland Security also announced they will start the process to end vaccination requirements for Head Start educators, CMS-certified healthcare facilities, and certain noncitizens at the land border.
So can employers throw out all of their COVID-19 policies and procedures? Not quite.Continue Reading Can US Employers Finally Leave COVID-19 in the Rearview Mirror?
New year, new Cal/OSHA COVID-19 regulations. The non-emergency COVID-19 prevention regulations (“New Regulations”) still await the Office of Administrative Law’s approval, but will likely take effect in the next few weeks. Employers eagerly await the end of the Emergency Temporary Standard’s (“ETS”) more burdensome requirements, such as exclusion pay and reporting outbreaks to local health
Effective January 1, 2023, California employers must continue to provide notification to employees of COVID-19 exposure in the workplace through 2023, but will be able to satisfy the notification obligation by displaying a notice in the workplace. On September 29, Governor Gavin Newsom signed AB 2693 into law, revising and extending the existing obligation for
Special thanks to guest contributor, Melissa Allchin.
COVID-19 has been a mainstay for over two years now. Notwithstanding the pandemic’s devastating impacts, employers (and employees) have tired of thinking about COVID-19, and are ready to allocate their energy and resources to other pressing matters, such as the economic crisis or transformative geopolitical events.
Though
As the COVID-19 Omicron wave recedes and the desire to get back to a pre-pandemic “normal” is stronger than ever, scores of states have either lifted mask mandates or have set a date for lifting them. But what should employers take into account before allowing employees to toss masks aside?
In this Quick Chat video,
As the Omicron wave recedes, a raft of states have announced plans to lift their mask mandates.
In the past few days alone, California, Connecticut, Delaware, Illinois, Massachusetts, Nevada, New Jersey, New York, Oregon, and Rhode Island have announced changes to their face covering rules. And if the number of Omicron cases continues to dwindle
