Workforce Bulletin

The federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (“EEOC” or “Agency”) has been spending a fair amount of time in recent months challenging the validity and legality of employers’ separation agreements. This is apparently part of the EEOC’s core priorities, including “targeting policies and practices that discourage or prohibit individuals from exercising their rights under employment discrimination statutes, or which impede the EEOC’s investigative or enforcement efforts.” Retail employers have not been exempted from the agency’s scrutiny. A ...

By Michael Kun

Several years ago, employees in California began filing class action lawsuits against their employers alleging violations of the “suitable seating” provision buried in the state’s Wage Orders.  The unique provision requires some employers to provide “suitable seating” to some employees when the “nature of their work” would “reasonably permit it.” 

The use of multiple sets of quotation marks in the previous sentence should give readers a good idea just how little guidance employers have about the obscure law.  

The California Supreme Court is now ...

Our colleague Allen B. Roberts recently wrote a client advisory entitled “Unions Swim Against the Tide as Pension Issues Surface for Negotiations and Organizing,” which appears on Epstein Becker Green's website.

Following is an excerpt:

Contributions to multiemployer defined benefit pension plans have been a mainstay, legacy feature of union negotiations in many industries. But the fabric of such staples may be tearing apart as employers contemplate the potential of escalating contributions to amortize unfunded liabilities that increase costs but may have ...

Our colleague Allen B. Roberts recently wrote a client advisory entitled “Unions Swim Against the Tide as Pension Issues Surface for Negotiations and Organizing,” which appears on Epstein Becker Green's website.

Following is an excerpt:

Contributions to multiemployer defined benefit pension plans have been a mainstay, legacy feature of union negotiations in many industries. But the fabric of such staples may be tearing apart as employers contemplate the potential of escalating contributions to amortize unfunded liabilities that increase costs but may have ...

By: Jeffrey M. Landes and Susan Gross Sholinsky

The presentation slides and the recording for the webinar - Creating and Maintaining a Lawful Internship Program - are now accessible for your viewing. If you would like to review, please contact Kiirsten Lederer to obtain instructions.

During this timely and important webinar, we discussed how to minimize both your organization's liability and the risk of wage and hour lawsuits. Specifically, participants walked away with answers to the following questions:

• What are the best practices for recruiting and hiring interns, and what ...

By Matthew S. Groban and Robert S. Groban, Jr.

The OCAHO has recently issued two Form I-9 enforcement decisions involving hospitality and construction industry employers that should be of interest to all our clients.

In United States v. Symmetric Solutions, Inc. d/b/a Minerva Indian Cuisine, 10 OCAHO no. 1209 (OCAHO February 6, 2014), an OCAHO Administrative Law Judge ("ALJ") upheld a $77,000 fine imposed by Immigration Customs Enforcement ("ICE") against a restaurant in Alpharetta, Georgia ("Restaurant"), for Form I-9 violations. ICE claimed that the Restaurant failed to ...

By: Jeffrey M. Landes and Susan Gross Sholinsky

The presentation slides and the recording for the webinar - Creating and Maintaining a Lawful Internship Program - are now accessible for your viewing.  If you would like to review, please contact Kiirsten Lederer to obtain instructions. 

During this timely and important webinar, we discussed how to minimize both your organization's liability and the risk of wage and hour lawsuits. Specifically, participants walked away with answers to the following questions:

• What are the best practices for recruiting and hiring interns, and what ...

By Jeffrey Landes, Susan Gross Sholinsky, and Nancy L. Gunzenhauser

A hot topic for every summer – but particularly this summer – is the status of unpaid interns. You are probably aware that several wage and hour lawsuits have been brought regarding the employment status of unpaid interns, particularly in the entertainment and publishing industries. The theory behind these cases is that the interns in question don’t fall within the “trainee” exception to the definition of “employee” under the federal Fair Labor Standards Act (“FLSA”), as well as applicable ...