Hunton Employment & Labor Perspectives

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) voted on April 23 to approve a final rule banning most non-compete agreements between employers and their workers (Final Rule). The Final Rule is scheduled to go into effect 120 days after it is published in the Federal Register, which will likely occur in the next few weeks, though legal challenges may delay the Final Rule’s effective date and FTC enforcement actions.

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An (Un)Predictable Future – 2024 Employment Issues to Watch

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On October 19, 2022, the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) released the new “Know Your Rights: Workplace Discrimination is Illegal” poster, which updates and replaces the previous “EEO is the Law” poster.  Covered employers are required by federal law to prominently display the poster at their work sites.

Earlier this year, Harris County, Texas, which encompasses a substantial majority of the City of Houston, became the sixth Texas city or county to embrace a “ban the box” policy when it adopted the Fair Chance Policy.

On April 9, 2022, Maryland became just the tenth state (in addition to the District of Columbia) to enact a paid family and medical leave law that covers private-sector workers, after overriding Governor Larry Hogan’s (R) veto.

President Joe Biden signed a new executive order on July 9, called the Executive Order on Promoting Competition in the American Economy, aimed at cracking down on monopolies in Big Tech, labor and other sectors.  According to a Fact Sheet released by the White House, the Executive Order includes 72 initiatives the President wants over a dozen federal agencies to undertake for the stated purpose of promoting competition throughout the U.S. economy.

Last month, Washington, D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser signed the Ban On Non-Compete Agreements Amendment Act of 2020 (“the Act”), which becomes effective next week.  This law is a statutory ban on non-compete agreements that has the strength of similar bans in California, North Dakota, and Oklahoma.

The Act applies to all D.C. private employers and applies broadly to most employees who perform work in D.C. or whom a prospective employer reasonably anticipates will perform work in D.C.  The law does not have a minimum salary threshold.  Under the Act, employers are prohibited from ...

As part of Virginia’s overhaul of its labor and employment laws—on which we previously reported—the Commonwealth also enacted Virginia Senate Bill 712, which amended the Virginia Human Rights Act (hereafter, the “VHRA”) to require covered employers to reasonably accommodate the known limitations of an employee as it relates to pregnancy, childbirth, or related medical conditions, unless such an accommodation would impose an undue hardship on the employer.

February is a great time for employers with New York operations to check on their progress regarding New Year’s resolutions for revising policies, training supervisors and implementing other changes to ensure compliance with recent developments in the law. The changes in employment laws during 2019 provide strong incentives for employers to update their practices. Following are 13 employment law developments that New York employers should make a part of their 2020 “resolutions” and employment practices.

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On June 5, 2019, Nevada Governor Steve Sisolak signed into law Assembly Bill No. 132 (“A.B. 132” or the “new law”), which is the first state law to curb pre-employment marijuana drug tests.  The new law has two primary effects: 1) it makes it unlawful for Nevada employers to fail or refuse to hire a prospective employee because the applicant submitted to a screening test and the results of the test indicate the presence of marijuana; and 2) it provides employees who test positive for marijuana with the right to, at their own expense, rebut the original test results by submitting an additional screening test within the first 30 days of employment. 

Originally published in The Business Journals, Jayde Brown and Alan Marcius discuss proactive steps small businesses can take to avoid common employment-related legal problems.  Read more here. 

The presence of alcohol in offices has ebbed and flowed over time and largely depended on the type of business, from drink carts in advertising agencies à la Mad Men to keg refrigerators at startups. The once popular office perk may or may not be waning, but the number of companies addressing the issue and the attention those decisions are generating is certainly increasing. Companies across the country are evaluating their alcohol policies, or lack thereof, particularly in light of #MeToo developments and are considering the following:

Voters in Michigan, Utah and Missouri passed marijuana-related ballot measures in the November 2018 elections.  Michigan, which legalized medical marijuana in 2008, became the tenth state to legalize recreational use of marijuana.  Utah voters agreed to institute a formal structured medical marijuana program, greatly expanding the scope of the state’s existing medical marijuana law, and Missouri voters for the first time authorized the state to create a system of licensed marijuana dispensaries for medical purposes. Each of these measures recognizes that marijuana remains a controlled substance, and illegal, under federal law, and that authorized users, growers, physicians, and any others who properly support or participate in these programs will be shielded from liability only under state law.

According to the National Human Trafficking Hotline, California has had the highest number of reported cases of human trafficking in the country over the last six years, followed by Texas and Florida.  Human trafficking victims include men and women, adults and children, and foreign nationals and United States citizens. Recent studies indicate that hotels and motels are common locations for sex trafficking.

In light of these startling statistics, now is a good time for employers to become informed about new legislation associated with human trafficking crimes and to implement or update their anti-human trafficking policies and practices.

In a time when workplace violence seems to be on the rise, many companies have adopted a strict no tolerance policy even for conduct outside the workplace.  In California, however, employers need to be cognizant of the protections afforded individuals that may make such terminations riskier than the company may expect.  One employer got just such a reminder last week when a California jury returned an $18M verdict against it for terminating an employee after he was arrested for threatening his girlfriend outside of the workplace.