Workforce Bulletin

As featured in #WorkforceWednesday: This week, we’re diving into arbitration agreements and learning some best practices for employers when crafting these agreements:

Employers often include arbitration agreements in their onboarding and other employee materials. Arbitration agreements are an important tool for employers due to the relative speed and lower costs associated with arbitration compared to litigation. However, these agreements are subject to increasing scrutiny and require careful consideration from employers.

Epstein Becker Green attorneys Victoria Sloan Lin and Andrew Lichtenstein highlight some hidden elements that can impact the effectiveness of arbitration agreements.

Is the developer of an AI resume-screening tool an “employment agency” or “agent” subject to liability under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act for its customers’ allegedly discriminatory employment decisions? According to the United States Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (“EEOC”), the answer is yes. On April 9, 2024, the EEOC filed a motion for leave to file a brief as amicus curiae, together with a brief, in Mobley v. Workday, Inc., Case No. 3:23-cv-00770-RFL, to support plaintiff Derek Mobley’s (“Mobley”) motion to dismiss.

The EEOC’s action is ...

As featured in #WorkforceWednesday: This week, we’re breaking down the U.S. Supreme Court’s (SCOTUS’s) new workplace discrimination decision, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission’s (EEOC’s) final rule on the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act (PWFA), and how recent artificial intelligence (AI) hiring tools have violated federal anti-bias laws.

On April 19, 2024, the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC or the “Commission”) published its final rule (“Final Rule”) and interpretive guidance to implement the  Pregnant Workers Fairness Act (PWFA). The Final Rule will take effect on June 18, 2024.

Although the PWFA borrows language and concepts that employers are already familiar with from existing federal protections, the Commission’s proposed rule to implement the PWFA (“Proposed Rule”), issued in August 2023, emphasized that the PWFA’s protections are broader and intended to cover ...

As featured in #WorkforceWednesday: Health care employers face unique challenges and considerations when deciding whether to litigate non-compete agreements with physicians. However, in such a quickly evolving legal landscape, the decision to take the matter to court is not always clear.

In this episode of Spilling Secrets, Epstein Becker Green attorneys Katherine G. Rigby, Erik W. Weibust, Daniel L. Fahey, and Jill K. Bigler discuss the unique challenges involved in litigating physician non-competes.

[Update: On April 25, 2024, Maryland Governor Wes Moore signed this bill into law.]

Maryland is poised to join the growing list of jurisdictions that have enacted pay transparency requirements for job postings, which includes jurisdictions such as California, Colorado, Hawaii, Illinois, New York, Washington State, and Washington D.C. House Bill 649 was passed by the General Assembly earlier this month, and if signed by the Governor, will take effect on October 1, 2024.

Maryland’s Current Pay Transparency Law

Maryland’s current wage history and wage range law that went into ...

As featured in #WorkforceWednesday: This week, we’re learning more about the Occupational Safety and Health Administration’s (OSHA’s) final rule on safety inspections, new COVID-19 guidance from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), and minimum wage updates from California (CA), New York City (NYC), and Virginia (VA).

Recently, the Sixth Circuit found that the Fair Credit Reporting Act (“FCRA”) preempted a former employee’s state law defamation claim against his former employer.  While the FCRA can impose burdensome requirements on the entities that fall within its scope, including consumer reporting agencies (“CRAs”), furnishers, or users of consumer reports, the FCRA can also serve as a shield against certain state law tort claims.

In McKenna v. Dillion Transportation, LLC,  plaintiff, a truck driver named Frank McKenna, sued his former employer, Dillon Transportation, LLC, for ...

As featured in #WorkforceWednesday: This week, we’re taking a look at the Department of Labor’s (DOL’s) new white-collar overtime exemption and worker classification rules and the U.S. government’s updated race and ethnicity categorizations.

New York City’s salary transparency law, which officially took effect in November 2022, requires “an employment agency, employer, or employee or agent thereof” to include a “good faith” salary or hourly wage range for every job, promotion, or transfer opportunity advertised for positions within New York City or involving work to be performed within its jurisdiction. Employers beware: New York City is now actively enforcing this salary transparency law through enforcement actions. 

Between October and December 2023, the New York City Commission on Human Rights ...