Workforce Bulletin

Washington State is considering sweeping legislation (SB 5376) to govern the security and privacy of personal data similar to the requirements of the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (“GDPR”). Under the proposed legislation, Washington residents will gain comprehensive rights in their personal data. Residents will have the right, subject to certain exceptions, to request that data errors be corrected, to withdraw consent to continued processing and to deletion of their data. Residents may require an organization to confirm whether it is processing ...

The New York City Commission on Human Rights (the “Commission”) has adopted new rules (“Rules”) which establish broad protections for transgender, non-binary, and gender non-conforming individuals. The Rules, which define various terms related to gender identity and expression, re-enforce recent statutory changes to the definition of the term “gender,” and clarify the scope of protections afforded gender identity status under the New York City Human Rights Law. New York State also just added gender identity and expression as protected classifications under ...

Our colleague Kevin Sullivan at Epstein Becker Green has a post on the Wage and Hour Defense Blog that will be of interest to our readers in the retail industry: “California Court of Appeal Concludes That Certain Types of On-Call Scheduling Triggers Requirement to Pay Wages."

On February 4, 2019, a divided panel of the California Court of Appeal issued their majority and dissenting opinion in Ward v. Tilly’s, Inc. It appears to be a precedent-setting decision in California, holding that an employee scheduled for an on-call shift may be entitled to certain wages for that shift ...

On February 1, 2019, the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission ("EEOC") announced that the agency is giving employers two additional months to file their EEO-1 workforce data surveys, extending the deadline from March 31, 2019 to May 31, 2019. The extension comes as a result of the EEOC’s partial lapse in appropriations and closure during the recent shutdown of the federal government. According to the EEOC website, detailed instructions for submission of EEO-1 data will be forthcoming.

Each year, the EEOC requires private employers who are subject to Title VII with 100 or ...

Building on progressive legislation passed last year, Governor Andrew Cuomo announced a sweeping proposal to strengthen protections against harassment in the workplace. The four part sexual assault and harassment safety reforms initiative, titled “TIME’S UP New York Safety Agenda,” is contained in the Governor’s 2019 Executive Budget, which was released on January 22, 2019. The safety reforms seek to prevent sexual harassment and assault from occurring while simultaneously enabling survivors to seek justice.

Currently, in order to prevail on a claim of sexual ...

As we previously reported, since 2017 employees have filed dozens of employment class actions claiming violations of Illinois’ 2008 Biometric Information Privacy Act (“BIPA”). In short, BIPA protects the privacy rights of employees, customers, and others in Illinois against the improper collection, usage, storage, transmission, and destruction of biometric information, including biometric identifiers, such as retina or iris scans, fingerprints, voiceprints, and scans of face or hand geometry. Before collecting such biometric information, BIPA requires an ...

On January 9, 2019, Mayor Bill de Blasio announced his plan to make New York City the first city in the country to mandate that private sector employers provide paid personal time (“PPT”) for their employees. Under the proposal, employers with five or more employees would be required to grant their employees 10 days of PPT to use for any purpose, including vacation, religious observance, bereavement, or simply to spend time with their families. It is unclear whether the proposed legislation would apply to only full-time workers, or whether, similar to the Earned Safe and Sick Time ...

On January 10, 2019, newly elected California Governor Gavin Newsom proposed funding six months of partial-paid leave for new parents. The plan, which was announced as part of the governor’s budget, would compensate new parents or caretakers up to 70 percent of their wages to care and bond with a newborn or adopted baby. Newsom stated that “public health and economic research shows that providing up to six months of paid parental leave leads to positive health and educational outcomes for children, greater economic security for parents, and less strain on finding and affording ...

As expected given the extreme volume of website accessibility lawsuits filed over the last few years, in the first few weeks of the new year, United States’ Circuit courts have finally begun to weigh in on the law as it pertains to the accessibility of websites and mobile applications, and the results are generally disappointing for businesses.

Background

The U.S. Department of Justice ("DOJ") has long taken the position that Title III of the Americans with Disabilities Act (“Title III”, “ADA”) applies to both websites and mobile apps, however, its withdrawal of Advanced ...

The New York State Department of Labor (“DOL”) recently issued proposed statewide regulations that would require employers to pay employees “call-in pay” when employers use “on call” scheduling or change employees’ work shifts on short notice. This is not the DOL’s first foray into this area – in November 2017, the DOL released similar proposed regulations but ultimately declined to adopt them. The DOL’s new set of proposed regulations would apply to the vast majority of employers operating in New York, but are of particular interest to New York City retail ...