I recently read a brief article regarding the former Captain of “The Best Damn Ship in the Navy.”  The article, an interview with Capt. D. Michael Abrashoff, formerly Captain of the USS Benfold (shown below), specifically focuses on his view that safety must be a top priority in any workplace.  As he says, even on a ship safety is something that you cannot just “order.” Rather, safety is something that has to be part of every individual’s daily thinking — from the Captain all the way down to the lowest ranking sailor.

The Occupational Safety & Health Administration (“OSHA”) recently released an advisory addressing employer and employee obligations “in the event of possible worker exposure to the Ebola virus.” Employers who believe that there is possible worker exposure to Ebola virus must implement various OSHA standards as part of a comprehensive worker protection program. The question many employers now face is: when does our workforce meet the threshold of “possible worker exposure” that would trigger implementation of these standards?

Governor Jerry Brown recently signed legislation that compels California employers to provide sick leave for their employees. The law, AB 1522 – also known as the Healthy Workplaces, Healthy Families Act of 2014 (“HWHFA”) – provides that employees will be entitled to earn at least three paid days of sick leave per year and will go into effect on July 1, 2015.

The following information was sent out yesterday (August 21, 2014) by members of our Labor & Employment team in Virginia.  If you have employees in Virginia, you need to read this and consider how it may affect your company.

Virginia Governor Terry McAuliffe signed Executive Order 24 on August 14, 2014, to establish an interagency task force on worker misclassification and payroll fraud.

As we have discussed in our prior blog posts in this series on the new OFCCP Regulations (which became effective on March 24, 2014), most of the new Regulations do not go into effect until the beginning of the contractor’s first plan year following March 24, 2014.  Many contractors have delayed implementing these new requirements because their new plan year has not yet begun.  The time for delaying is quickly coming to an end!

If you have a union in your workplace, or if unions have tried to organize workers in your workplace, you know that unions need ways to communicate with your employees.  Before the current digital age, unions relied primarily on communicating through informational picketing and leafleting, posters and mailings, and individual and group meeting to encourage unionization or to communicate with members and represented employees.  Today, with the modern workplace and internet-connected workers, communications can be conducted far more quickly, efficiently, cheaply and often more effectively through electronic means, such as email.  But historically, unions have not been permitted access to company email systems.  The current rule is that “employees have no statutory right to use the[ir] Employer’s e-mail system” for non-work-related purposes. If unions and the current Presidential administration get their way, that all might change.

We recently posted on one of our firm’s other blogs, Information Intersection, about the joint guidance that was recently issued by the EEOC and FTC on employment background checks.  While much of the content of both the employer and employee directed guidance is not new or surprising, these publications further…

Yesterday, President Obama signed an executive order and issued a presidential memorandum pressing his equal pay agenda.  The executive order establishes that workers cannot be prevented from discussing their pay with other employees or applicants.  Its declared target is to support efforts to eradicate gender-based pay disparities.  Its aim though is probably more akin to using a hand-held mirror to shoot over your shoulder at the target.

The EEOC recently announced that it will double its fine for employers who violate the notice posting requirements of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, the Americans with Disabilities Act, and the Genetic Information Non-Discrimination Act, from $100 per violation to $210.   The new rule will go into effect on April 18, 2014.

Have you (or others at your company) considered using mandatory arbitration agreements with your employees?  The idea is to require an employee who ends up in an employment dispute to handle that dispute before an arbitrator, rather than by filing a lawsuit.  But are these agreements valid and enforceable?  A recent decision by the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals (which handles cases from all federal courts in Georgia, Alabama and Florida) has a lot to say about the overall effectiveness and enforceability of mandatory arbitration agreements.