Workforce Bulletin

At the Firm’s 33rd Annual Labor and Employment Client Briefing, Lauri Rasnick and John Fullerton spoke on the financial services industry panel about the impact of increased compliance obligations on the employment relationship and developments in the areas of applicant screening, whistleblower complaints, internal investigations, and diversity and inclusion.

Here are a few takeaways from that session:

• Eleven states have enacted legislation prohibiting the use of consumer credit reports in making employment decisions.  There has been a dramatic increase in state and ...

In this month's Take 5 newsletter, I share my thoughts regarding five important issues that TMT companies should consider as they shape their employee benefits programs.  Below is an excerpt:

The workplace that we know today is rapidly changing. Competition for highly skilled workers is fierce, employees have become more mobile (due, in part, to alternative work arrangements or outsourcing), and there are often several generations of employees working alongside one another with different workplace approaches and perspectives. Developing employee benefit and compensation ...

Jeffrey H. Ruzal, Senior Counsel in the Labor and Employment practice, in Epstein Becker Green's New York office, was quoted by Law360 in “Battles Over Hospitality Wages May Turn on Technicalities.” (Read the full version - subscription required.)

Following is an excerpt:

Law360, New York (October 08, 2014, 3:08 PM ET) – Sideswiped by a pair of minimum wage hikes in New York City and Los Angeles, hotel and restaurant groups are gearing up for legal fights on both coasts. But the groups face uphill battles and any successes will hinge on challenging technicalities in the city ...

Companies who utilize cloud vendors to store their data on cloud-based applications should be advised: failing to understand the application’s storage and retrieval capabilities, and failing to preserve such data during litigation could lead to sanctions for both the company and its counsel.  That’s the lesson to be learned from a recent case in the Southern District of Ohio, one of the first of its kind to directly address the intersection between the cloud and its impact on litigation strategy.

In Brown v. Tellermate Holdings, Ltd., Case No. 2:11-cv-1122, 2014 U.S. Dist. LEXIS ...

David W. Garland, Chair of Epstein Becker Green’s Labor and Employment Steering Committee and a member of the firm's Board of Directors, will moderate “It’s In The Bag – Summary of Bag Check Litigation And Strategies For Minimizing Risk” at the National Retail Federation Human Resources Executive Summit at the Hard Rock Hotel in Chicago, Illinois on October 15, 2014.

During this general session, retailers who are grappling with employee bag check litigation discuss what the industry can expect in litigation over employee compensation for time spent in bag checks to deter ...

On Thursday, October 30, 2014, our colleague Stuart M. Gerson of Epstein Becker Green’s Litigation and Health Care and Life Sciences practices in the firm’s Washington, DC and New York offices will discuss the Hobby Lobby decision and its impact on the workplace.  The briefing will be held at the Cornell ILR School of Labor and Employment.  Other panelists include Marci A. Hamilton, Esq., Paul R. Verkuil, Esq., Arthur S. Leonard, Esq., and Paul W. Mollica, Esq.

Click here to learn more and to register

When:
Thursday, October 30, 2014
8:30am – Registration & Breakfast

By Aaron Olsen

Minimum wage continues to be a hot button issue.  For instance, in California, the state minimum wage increased from $8.00 to $9.00 per hour on July 1, 2014. The state minimum wage will further increase to $10 per hour on January 1, 2016.  However, this affects more than just hourly employees.  In California, for employees to be classified as exempt under the “executive” exemption, they must, among other things, be paid at least two times the state minimum wage for full-time employment in a fixed, predetermined salary.  Thus, as of July 1, 2014, the minimum weekly salary is ...

California has created additional protections for unpaid interns and created additional requirements for sexual harassment prevention training.  In addition, California has mandated a new requirement for most employers to provide their employees with paid sick leave.  This new sick-leave requirement will go into effect next summer on July 1, 2015. For a more detailed description of these changes, click here to review the Act Now Advisory written by our colleagues Jennifer L. Nutter and Marisa Ratinoff.

California has created additional protections for unpaid interns and created additional requirements for sexual harassment prevention training.  In addition, California has mandated a new requirement for most employers to provide their employees with paid sick leave.  This new sick-leave requirement will go into effect next summer on July 1, 2015. For a more detailed description of these changes, click here to review the Act Now Advisory written by our colleagues Jennifer L. Nutter and Marisa Ratinoff.

Our colleague Jeffrey H. Ruzal recently wrote an article entitled “Illinois Court Holds That Meal Credit Program Is Valid,” which appears in the September 2014 issue of Hospitality Law.

Following is an excerpt:

Providing an employee meal program may be a nice gesture, but requires companies that do so to maintain proper records in case their meal plans are challenged.  An Illinois appellate court recently affirmed a circuit court’s dismissal of plaintiff restaurant worker’s class action claim that defendant restaurant employer took improper deductions from ...