Workforce Bulletin

As featured in #WorkforceWednesday: This week, on our Spilling Secrets podcast series, our panelists outline the benefits of intellectual property (IP) audits and trade secret assessments for employers and organizations looking to safeguard their assets.

Beyond Non-Competes: IP and Trade Secret Assessment Strategies for Employers

With non-compete agreements facing continual legal pressure, what are some other ways employers can protect their trade secrets and IP?

In this episode of Spilling Secrets, Epstein Becker Green attorneys Daniel R. Levy, Gregory J. Krabacher, and Hemant Gupta describe how IP audits and trade secret assessments can offer a uniquely targeted approach to protecting sensitive information, ensuring a company has a grasp of the full scope of their assets.

New Jersey has joined the growing ranks of jurisdictions that have enacted pay transparency laws. Senate Bill 2310 (“the Law”) was enacted on November 10, 2024, and approved on November 18, 2024 as Public Law 2024, chapter 91. The Law will take effect on June 1, 2025, i.e., “the first day of the seventh month next following the date of enactment,” and will require most New Jersey employers to disclose a wage or salary range and a general description of benefits and other compensation programs in their job postings and advertisements. The Law also will require covered employers to make “reasonable efforts to announce, post, or otherwise make known opportunities for promotion” to current employees, a feature that is not common in similar laws enacted by other jurisdictions.

Covered Employers

The Law applies to any employer that has 10 or more employees over 20 calendar weeks and does business, employs persons, or takes applications for employment within the state.

Note that employers in Jersey City with five or more employees within Jersey City are already required to comply with that city’s ordinance mandating the disclosure of salary information in postings. This ordinance remains in effect, which means that Jersey City employers with five to nine employees that will be exempt from the state’s law must still comply with the city’s law.

With 2024 winding down, New York employers should be aware of the updates to the New York State Paid Family Leave (PFL) program that take effect in 2025.

As a reminder, PFL allows eligible employees to take up to 12 weeks of job-protected, partially paid time off within a 52-week period for permitted reasons, such as to bond with a newborn, care for a family member with a serious health condition or assist when a family member is deployed abroad on active military service.

As we noted in a bulletin post last year, New York has modified its program several times since establishing PFL in 2018. While PFL’s changes for 2025, as explained below, are ministerial, it should be noted that New York recently expanded other mandatory benefits, including the provision of paid lactation breaks and the addition of paid leave for prenatal care under the New York paid sick leave program. 

As featured in #WorkforceWednesday®: This week, we're analyzing how the upcoming Trump administration may affect National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) policies and enforcement priorities promoting union activity, recent court decisions on union protections, and high-profile strikes and evolving worker demands.

As featured in #WorkforceWednesday®: This week, we’re underlining the importance of managing election-related tensions in the workplace.

Both political parties have called this the most consequential election in recent history, which means that this morning in your workplace, some employees are celebrating, and others might be feeling hurt, disappointed, or maybe even fearful. What can employers do to help?

Epstein Becker Green attorneys Susan Gross Sholinsky and Michael S. Ferrell outline proactive strategies employers can adopt to prevent potential workplace incidents and describe protections surrounding political speech, as governed by laws like the National Labor Relations Act.

California continues to be the birthplace of ideas that complicate employment laws. True to form, it is the first state to adopt the concept of intersectionality in its anti-discrimination statutes.

On September 27, 2024, Governor Newsom signed Senate Bill 1137 (SB 1137) into law. This legislation amends several provisions of existing California law to clarify that unlawful discriminatory practices may include “any combination” of protected characteristics or traits – not just a single one. 

Of particular importance to companies: SB 1137 thus modifies  the Unruh Civil Rights Act, which prohibits discrimination by business establishments, and California’s Fair Employment and Housing Act (FEHA), which prohibits harassment and discrimination in employment. The updates to these laws will take effect on January 1, 2025.

Lam v. University of Hawaii

While SB 1137 is the first statutory law of its kind, the concept of intersectional discrimination is not new. Thirty years ago, the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit addressed this challenge. In Lam v. University of Hawaii, a woman of Vietnamese descent filed a lawsuit against the University of Hawaii Richardson School of Law, alleging that the law school violated Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 by discriminating against her on the bases of her race, sex, and national origin. Lam had applied but was twice rejected from the law school’s Pacific Asian Legal Studies Program.

Election Day is Tuesday, November 5. During this election season, employers may question whether the law requires them to allow employees time off to vote, often referred to as “voting leave”, and if so, whether such leave is paid. Perhaps just as urgently, employers may need to manage workplace political talk and potential consequences.

The short answer about voting leave is the same lawyers often give: it depends! Most states and many local jurisdictions have their own laws addressing voting leave and related rights. This article is not a comprehensive, state-by-state guide, and employers should check applicable laws in their jurisdictions when in doubt. Instead, this overview is a reminder of potential issues and best practices to ensure a safe and legally sound workplace in the days before and after Election Day.

Voting Leave

State and local laws on voting leave impose varying obligations on employers. Employers should review the applicable state laws and regulations of every jurisdiction in which they have employees. To highlight a few:

• California: if an employee doesn’t have sufficient time outside of working hours to vote, the employee may take off enough working time that, when added to the voting time available outside of working hours, will enable the employee to vote. Up to two hours of working time off must be without loss of pay. The time off can be at the start or end of the working shift. If the employee knows in advance that time off will be necessary to vote, the employee must give the employer at least two working days’ notice. Note that the law requires employers to post a notice to employees advising them of their rights regarding voting leave.

As featured in #WorkforceWednesday: This week, on our Spilling Secrets podcast series, our panelists connect the enchantment of Harry Potter with the intricacies of trade secrets and restrictive covenants:

Prepare to be spellbound this Halloween as we cast a magical twist on the realm of trade secrets and restrictive covenants! Whether you're a Gryffindor at heart or more of a Slytherin, there's something for every magical mind seeking to safeguard their organization’s trade secrets.

Epstein Becker Green attorneys A. Millie Warner, Jill K. Bigler, and Aime Dempsey team up with Kristen O’Connor—Senior Assistant General Counsel, Employment at Marsh & McLennan Companies—to wave their legal wands over topics such as Professor Snape’s secret potion book, Hermione’s clever jinxes, and much more.

Retail employers in New York State will have to face new requirements beginning on March 4, 2025, as a result of the recent enactment of the State’s Retail Worker Safety Act (“Act”). The Act will impose the State’s latest employment obligations on retail employers, mandating violence prevention training and precautionary workplace measures. Set to become effective about a year after California enacted similar legislation related to employee harassment and violence prevention in 2024, this is yet another state law that aims to ensure safer working environments for retail workers. As many retailers’ busiest season of the year approaches, they will also need to take time to prepare for compliance with the Act’s requirements.

On October 3, 2024, the United States District Court for the District of Columbia’s Opinion and Order in Mark C. Savignac and Julia Sheketoff v. Jones Day, et al., 19-cv-02443-RDM, addressed Title VII’s “participation clause,” in granting in part and denying in part, the law firm’s motion for summary judgment.

The court further denied plaintiff’s cross-motion for summary judgment. Plaintiffs, a married couple who were both formerly employed as attorneys (she resigned in 2018, he was terminated in 2019), alleged federal and state discrimination and retaliation claims based on their objections to Jones Day’s unequal parental leave policies. In the latter part of the opinion, the Court analyzed whether Savignac engaged in protected activity under the participation clause of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (“Title VII”).

In addition to prohibiting discrimination, Title VII’s provisions protect a covered individual from employer retaliation when the individual participates in an investigation or opposes covered unlawful conduct. These provisions—commonly referred to as the “participation clause” and “opposition clause”—are intended to encourage employees to report, and employers to address, discrimination in the workplace.