Workforce Bulletin

Chipotle recently obtained decertification of a conditionally certified collective action of salaried “apprentices” under Section 216(b) of the Fair Labor Standards Act (“FLSA”) in Scott et al. v. Chipotle Mexican Grill, Inc. et al., Case No. 12-CV-8333 (S.D.N.Y. Mar. 29, 2017), a case in New York federal court involving claims of unpaid overtime based on misclassification.  In that case, Chipotle effectively leveraged disparities between the job duties and activities of putative class and collective action members across six states to show that they were not ...

Employers often struggle to provide employees with their requested accommodations and to comply with disability laws while still effectively running their business. This struggle has been compounded with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission’s aggressive pursuit of litigation in this area in recent years.  A New York federal court recently weighed in on the issue in Kelly v. Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide, Inc., 15 Civ. 6309 (DLC), 2017 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 43485 (S.D.N.Y. Mar. 24, 2017), holding that an employer is only required to provide an employee with a “plainly ...

Howard Gerver is a self-proclaimed human capital data geek.  His “day job” specializes in finding innovative and practical ways to save money by identifying “golden nuggets” mined from Big HR Data sets, such as claims and human capital data.  A lot of this work includes analytics, claim auditing and eligibility auditing.  His “nights and weekend” job focuses on helping clients leverage their HR, Benefits, Leave and Time & Attendance data to help improve compliance with the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare).   Throughout his career, he has focused on improving the ...

In the latest of an increasing number of recent website accessibility decisions, in Gorecki v. Hobby Lobby Stores, Inc. (Case No.: 2:17-cv-01131-JFW-SK), the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California denied Hobby Lobby’s motion to dismiss a website accessibility lawsuit on due process and primary jurisdiction grounds.  In doing so, the Hobby Lobby decision further calls into question the precedential value of the Central District of California’s recent outlier holding in Robles v. Dominos Pizza LLC (Case No.: 2:16-cv-06599-SJO-FFM) which provided ...

Featured on Employment Law This Week - New York City has enacted “fair workweek” legislation.

Mayor Bill de Blasio has signed a package of bills into law limiting scheduling flexibility for fast-food and retail employers. New York City is the third major city in the United States, after San Francisco and Seattle, to enact this kind of legislation. The bills require fast-food employers to provide new hires with good-faith estimates of the number of hours that they will work per week and to pay workers a premium for scheduling changes made less than 14 days in advance.

Watch the segment ...

After years of ongoing and frequent developments on the website accessibility front, we now finally have – what is generally believed to be – the very first post-trial ADA verdict regarding website accessibility.  In deciding Juan Carlos Gil vs. Winn-Dixie Stores, Inc. (Civil Action No. 16-23020-Civ-Scola) – a matter in which Winn-Dixie first made an unsuccessful motion to dismiss the case (prompting the U.S. Department of Justice (“DOJ”) to file a Statement of Interest) – U.S. District Judge Robert N. Scola, Jr. of the Southern District of Florida issued a Verdict ...

Featured on Employment Law This Week: The Department of Labor’s Fiduciary Rule will go into effect on June 9th.

The controversial rule will require financial professionals who advise clients on retirement accounts to promote suitable products and act in the best interests of their clients. Secretary of Labor Alexander Acosta announced in a Wall Street Journal op-ed that there is “no principled legal basis” to delay the rule, although full enforcement won’t begin until 2018. The department intends to issue a Request for Information to seek public opinion on revisions and ...

The Federal Trade Commission (“FTC”) recently issued guidance discussing certain disclosure and authorization requirements that employers must satisfy prior to obtaining background screening reports for prospective employees.  If your company obtains background information to screen prospective employees, now is a good time to make sure you are complying with the Fair Credit Reporting Act (“FCRA”).

Under the FCRA, background screening reports are either “consumer reports” or “investigative consumer reports” when they are used for employment purposes ...

The Department of Labor (“DOL”) previously announced the applicability date for the DOL’s fiduciary rule (the “Fiduciary Rule”) will be June 9, 2017.  On May 22, 2017, in an opinion piece for the Wall Street Journal, Labor Secretary Alexander Acosta disclosed that, despite the Administration’s agenda of deregulation, the regulators are required to following existing law and must enforce the Fiduciary Rule.  On the same date, the DOL announced, in Field Assistance Bulletin 2017-02 (“FAB 2017-2”), that during a transition period from June 9, 2017 until January 1 ...