Employment & Labor (U.S.)

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On November 15, 2024, a United States Eastern District Court in Texas struck down a 2024 Department of Labor (DOL) rule that would have made four million previously exempt workers eligible for overtime by 2025. In an action brought by the State of Texas and a coalition of business associations, the court held that the DOL exceeded its statutory authority under the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 (FLSA) by effectively reclassifying these employees as non-exempt based on their salaries without considering their job duties.  

The FLSA requires payment of overtime to employees working more than forty hours in a week but exempts certain executive, administrative, and professional employees. Under the FLSA, the DOL must periodically define and delimit which workers fall under these exemptions. In 1940 the DOL introduced a three-part test, which is still in place today, to determine whether an employee is overtime exempt: (1) the employee must be paid a predetermined, fixed salary; (2) the salary must be at a weekly rate above a minimum threshold set by the DOL; and (3) the employee must have executive, administrative, or professional job duties. The 2024 rule scheduled three increases to the minimum salary threshold, which previously was $684 per week: $844 on July 1, 2024; $1,128 on January 1, 2025; and automatic increases every three years starting in July 2027.Continue Reading Texas District Court vacates DOL rule expanding overtime eligibility

On October 23, 2024, legislation was introduced in the New York City Council that would amend the New York City Earned Safe and Sick Time Act (ESSTA) to allow employees to use sick leave to care for pets and service animals.

Currently, ESSTA provides employees with sick leave to care for their own mental or physical health, to care for a family member’s health, and to care for a child whose school or childcare provider has been closed because of a public health emergency. Continue Reading New York City considers extending paid sick leave to pet care

Recent years have shown a continued increase in unionization and organization activities within the American workforce, as measured by union representation petition filings with the National Labor Relations Board’s (NLRB).

The NLRB confirmed this upward trend at the close of FY 2024, which ended on September 30, 2024. According to the NLRB’s data, union election petitions increased by 27 percent over FY 2023, totaling 3,286 petitions filed. The data also shows that the number of union election petitions more than doubled the 1,638 petitions filed in FY 2021.Continue Reading Unionization activity continues to surge in the U.S.

On January 1, 2025, an amendment to New York Labor Law section 196-b, the state’s paid sick leave law, will go into effect. The amendment requires New York employers to provide employees with 20 hours of paid prenatal leave during any 52-week period.

The amendment provides that paid prenatal leave may be taken for “health care services received by an employee during their pregnancy or related to such pregnancy, including physical examinations, medical procedures, monitoring and testing, and discussions with a health care provider related to the pregnancy.”Continue Reading New York paid prenatal leave to go into effect on January 1, 2025

As employers continue to monitor the legal challenges against the Federal Trade Commission’s (FTC) final rule banning most non-compete agreements, they should not overlook similar efforts by other federal agencies and/or state legislatures to limit and/or prohibit the use and enforcement of non-compete agreements between employers and employees.

To that end, the National Labor Relations Board’s (NLRB) has primed itself to take its own swing at non-compete agreements. On October 7, 2024, NLRB General Counsel Jennifer Abruzzo issued a 17-page memo focused on the use of overly broad non-compete agreements. It expands on her May 30, 2023 memo, in which she opined that non-compete agreements tended to chill an employee’s rights to engage in concerted activity protected under Section 7 of the National Labor Relations Act, including advocating for improved working conditions through concerted efforts to obtain employment with other employers or carry out concerted threats of resignation.Continue Reading The non-compete agreement showdown: After the FTC’s final rule setback, the NLRB gears up to tackle non-compete agreements

Massachusetts lawmakers had a busy 2024 and have ushered in several new measures to take effect in the coming months. As Massachusetts employers close out 2024 and look toward the new year, they should keep the following key dates in mind:

  • November 21, 2024: Massachusetts earned sick time expands to cover physical or mental health
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Now that Governor Gavin Newsom’s September 30th deadline to approve or veto legislative bills has passed, California employers can begin preparing for the new laws that will affect their workplaces next year. The recent legislative session has yielded strengthened protections for workers in a diverse array of subject areas, including but not limited to union organization, freelance work, anti-discrimination, paid family leave, and artificial intelligence. The new laws go into effect January 1, 2025. To help employers stay ahead of the curve, we have highlighted the most significant employment laws signed into law below. We encourage employers to consult with legal counsel to ensure compliance.Continue Reading California employment law legislative update: What employers need to know for 2025

On September 27, 2024, California Governor Gavin Newsom signed Senate Bill (SB) 1137 into law, clarifying that discrimination can happen based on an intersection or combination of protected characteristics. Specifically, SB 1137 amended the Unruh Civil Rights Act, the Education Code, and the Fair Employment and Housing Act (FEHA) to extend protection against discrimination by including the concept of “intersectionality”.

Back in February 2024, California State Senator Lola Smallwood-Cuevas introduced SB 1137, which aimed to make California the first state to explicitly recognize “intersectionality” in anti-discrimination laws. Smallwood-Cuevas notes in her April 15, 2024, press release that “[d]iscrimination transcends singular dimensions”, and that SB 1137 “is common-sense reform that addresses the intersectionality of discrimination cases, providing greater protections for Californians, especially those from our most marginalized communities of color.”Continue Reading California adopts intersectionality into anti-discrimination laws

Since Pennsylvania legalized medical marijuana in 2016, employers navigated the murky waters of drug testing applicants and employees who hold medical marijuana cards amid a lack of clarity in the law regarding these issues.

On September 24, 2024, a new law went into effect in the City of Pittsburgh that provides a guiding beacon for employers in this area. The law protects individuals holding medical marijuana cards from employment discrimination in the workplace based on their cannabis use for medically approved purposes. In other words, the law makes medical marijuana cardholders a protected class under local law.Continue Reading Rolling out new rights: Pittsburgh’s bold move on medical marijuana in the workplace

The government’s plans for unfair dismissal to become a day-one right (subject to reasonable use of probationary periods) create an uncertain time for employers, particularly those currently taking on new hires or entering into fixed term contracts. While we await detail of the government’s plans, we take a brief look at the history of the qualifying period and the transitional arrangements which have applied, the latter potentially indicative of what the arrangements will be this time around.

The right not to be unfairly dismissed has been part of established UK employment law since 1971 and is currently legislated for in the Employment Rights Act 1996. Although there are some exceptions, the right has always been subject to a qualifying period of service, i.e., that the employee must have been working for their employer for a prescribed period of time before they have unfair dismissal rights.Continue Reading Transition arrangements for a change in unfair dismissal qualification