Workforce Bulletin

UPDATE: New York State issued FAQs confirming that the mask mandate applies to private businesses and their employees. Employers in office spaces must either require proof of vaccination or impose a mask mandate. Masks must be worn except “when eating, drinking, or alone in an enclosed room.”

Webinar – Spring/Summer 2019

Internship programs can help employers source and develop talent, but they do not come without their pitfalls. If you are an employer at a tech startup, a large financial institution, a fashion house, or something else entirely, and you plan on having interns this summer, this webinar is for you. Learn the steps for creating a legally compliant internship program.

For many years, the U.S. Department of Labor (“DOL”) used the “six-factor test” when determining whether an employee was legally considered an unpaid intern, such that the intern ...

Webinar – Spring/Summer 2019

Internship programs can help employers source and develop talent, but they do not come without their pitfalls. If you are an employer at a tech startup, a large financial institution, a fashion house, or something else entirely, and you plan on having interns this summer, this webinar is for you. Learn the steps for creating a legally compliant internship program.

For many years, the U.S. Department of Labor (“DOL”) used the “six-factor test” when determining whether an employee was legally considered an unpaid intern, such that the ...

Webinar - Spring/Summer 2019

Internship programs can help employers source and develop talent, but they do not come without their pitfalls. If you are an employer at a tech startup, a large financial institution, a fashion house, or something else entirely, and you plan on having interns this summer, this webinar is for you. Learn the steps for creating a legally compliant internship program.

For many years, the U.S. Department of Labor ("DOL") used the “six-factor test” when determining whether an employee was legally considered an unpaid intern, such that the intern would not ...

Our colleagues Jeff Landes, Jeff Ruzal, and Adriana Kosovych are featured on Employment Law This Week - Predictive Scheduling Laws, the New Normal? - Deep Dive Episode speaking on predictive scheduling laws and the impact on business. Taking the guesswork out of scheduling for wage workers is an attractive proposition for regulators. Laws that require employers to publish employee work schedules a certain amount of time in advance so that employees (especially those in the hospitality and retail industries) can have greater flexibility and work-time predictability to deal ...

In a move allowing increased flexibility for employers and greater opportunity for unpaid interns to gain valuable industry experience, the United States Department of Labor (“DOL”) recently issued Field Assistance Bulletin No. 2018-2, adopting the “primary beneficiary” test used by several federal appellate courts to determine whether unpaid interns at for-profit employers are employees for purposes of the Fair Labor Standards Act. If interns are, indeed, deemed employees, they must be paid minimum wage and overtime, and cannot serve as interns without pay. The ...

As many will recall, the Department of Labor’s (“DOL”) overtime rule, increasing the salary threshold for overtime exemptions at the behest of the Obama administration, was scheduled to take effect on December 1, 2016. Months later, it remains in limbo before the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeal. And it apparently will remain in limbo for at least several more months.

After publication of the final overtime rule on May 23, 2016, two lawsuits were filed by a coalition of 21 states and a number of business advocacy groups, claiming that the DOL exceeded its rulemaking authority in ...

Complying with employment law has become increasingly difficult given that various states and municipalities have passed legislation that seemingly contradicts federal guidance.[1] One state law that has been in the spotlight is North Carolina’s House Bill 2, the “Public Facilities Privacy and Security Act” (“HB2”), which was passed in an emergency legislative session on March 23, 2016, to overturn a local ordinance that was set to extend anti-discrimination protections to lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (“LGBT”) individuals and would have allowed ...

[caption id="attachment_2472" align="alignright" width="113"] Laura C. Monaco[/caption]

This week, the EEOC filed its first two federal lawsuits that frame allegations of sexual orientation-based harassment and discrimination as claims of unlawful "sex discrimination" under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

In EEOC v. Pallet Companies the EEOC alleges that an employee's night-shift manager harassed her because of her sexual orientation by making repeated offensive comments (sometimes accompanied by sexually suggestive gestures), such as "I want to turn you back ...

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 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 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 ...

Our colleagues Michelle Capezza, Jeffrey M. Landes, and Susan Gross Sholinsky will host Epstein Becker Green's retail roundtable summit from 12:00 p.m. - 2:00 p.m. on May 21. Join us for an open discussion among retail industry executives. The summit will be devoted to retail industry labor and employment issues that general counsel and human resources executives are facing.

Topics to include:

• Legal, logistical, ethical, and other factors to consider when creating and implementing internship programs
• Ramifications of newly-enacted state and local laws on handbook policies ...

In a complimentary webinar on May 22 (1:00 p.m. ET), our colleagues Jeffrey M. Landes and Susan Gross Sholinsky will present a webinar on how to strategically structure internship programs to comply with applicable wage and hour guidelines.

Join us for a discussion on how to minimize both your organization's liability and the risk of wage and hour lawsuits. In particular, below are just a few of the many questions we will address during the webinar:

• What are the best practices for recruiting and hiring seasonal interns, and what critical language should you include (or avoid) in ...

Our colleagues have issued a new client advisory: “New York State Department of Labor Adopts Wage Deduction Regulations,” by William J. Milani, Dean L. Silverberg, Jeffrey M. Landes, Susan Gross Sholinsky, Anna A. Cohen, and Jennifer A. Goldman.

Following is an excerpt:

The New York State Department of Labor (“DOL”) has adopted wage deduction regulations (“Final Regulations”) pertaining to the expanded categories of permissible wage deductions in the New York Labor Law, effective October 9, 2013.  As we previously reported (see the Act Now Advisory entitled “New ...