Dan is a seasoned employment law professional. He represents and counsels clients on a wide variety of employment, education, senior care, and workplace health and safety issues. Dan has represented clients before state and ...
What’s a busy HR professional to do now? You were so looking forward to spending the holidays planning for compliance with the Department of Labor (DOL)’s new overtime rule and then it got struck down (thanks Texas judges!) Now, what to do with all those empty hours?
How about working on a checklist of HR items for the New Year? A few include:
Employers are governed not only by federal wage and hour, discrimination, leave, and other such laws, but also by a patchwork of state and local employment laws. In our experience, employers are often unaware of state and local employment law changes until after the fact.
As an example, Michigan passed the Earned Sick Time Act in 2018, but before ...
On July 3, 2024, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) obtained an injunction against the United States Postal Service (USPS), protecting USPS employees from retaliation for reporting workplace injuries. OSHA determined, through its investigation, that USPS unlawfully fired three probationary employees in three ...
Workplace violence, or threats of violence, unfortunately, reaches across all industries. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, in 2020 there were 37,060 non-fatal injuries inflicted by someone in the workplace. Ohio businesses and organizations, including government entities, may be able to utilize an Organizational Protection ...
The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) recently published its final Worker Walkaround Representative Designation Process rule (Walkaround Rule), which takes effect May 31, 2024. The new Walkaround Rule expands employees’ rights to decide who represents them during OSHA inspections.
Out With the Old: The ...
We’ve been discussing the various implications of the current ‘return to work’ push. Another implication is layoff decisions and the potential for disparate impact on remote workers, who tend to disproportionally be women and people of color.
What’s New?
Studies show remote workers are more likely to be women, people of color, and ...
Beginning in 2024, more than 52,000 employers must start complying with a new OSHA rule that requires employers with 100 or more employees in certain “high hazard” industries to electronically submit annual reports to OSHA of every significant workplace injury/illness incident at the work site.
By: Daniel Burke and Tommy Rogers*
The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) defines workplace violence as any act or threat of physical violence, harassment, intimidation, or other threatening or disruptive behavior that occurs at the work site. It may range from threats and verbal abuse to physical assaults and even homicide ...
By: Daniel Burke and Cassidy Zang*
It’s no secret that the job market is facing some headwinds, with employers implementing layoffs and hiring freezes to avoid being overstaffed in the event of a recession. Another tool that employers may consider in this challenging economic climate is rescinding job offers previously extended to candidates.
By: Daniel Burke and Daniel O'Connor*
Ohio Senate Bill 47 (SB 47) took effect on July 6, 2022. This law does not break any new ground, but rather aligns Ohio’s overtime pay requirements with similar provisions of the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) that have been in effect for decades. Most notably, SB 47 created new Ohio Revised Code § 4111.031 ...
By: Dan Burke and Liam McMillin
Apparently intent on avoiding the holiday rush, OSHA today issued its COVID-19 Vaccination and Testing Emergency Temporary Standard (ETS). Covered employers must comply with all requirements other than testing by December 5, and by January 4 for the testing requirements.
The details of the ETS are too numerous ...
By: Dan Burke and Laura Caty
OSHA updated its workplace COVID guidance last week to align with CDC's recent recommendations for fully vaccinated individuals. This development presents a further wrinkle for businesses wrestling with whether to reinstate an across-the-board mask mandate in the workplace, regardless of vaccination status.
Good news abounds for employers and employees alike! The CDC, as well as Ohio and Kentucky, have relaxed masking and social distancing requirements for vaccinated workers in most settings. Both Ohio and Kentucky have said that all emergency health orders related to Covid, with some exceptions, will be lifted in June. OSHA, for its part, has said ...
By: Dan Burke & Laura Caty
The good news is that the COVID vaccine is being administered this week! At the end of a very long year, this vaccine represents hope.
Although the vaccine is not yet widely available, now is the time for employers to consider whether they will require employees to be vaccinated against COVID and, if so, develop a ...
By: Dan Burke & Laura Caty
This week, the Department of Labor (DOL) issued a new opinion letter addressing whether the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) requires employers to pay employees who attend ongoing continuing education (CEU’s) during normal work hours. The opinion letter hones in on the voluntary aspect of certain CEU’s, as opposed ...
The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) delivered some welcome news for employers this week in the form of guidance clarifying that an employer that permits employees to telework temporarily during the COVID crisis is not automatically locked into allowing telework once the workplace reopens.
As we commented in a prior blog post ...
Today, in Our Lady of Guadalupe School v. Morrissey-Berru, the U.S. Supreme Court barred employment discrimination suits by two Catholic grade school teachers, holding that, “Courts are bound to stay out of employment disputes involving those holding certain important positions with churches and other religious institutions.”
The ...
Gus Lazares & Dan Burke
Last month we told you that that OSHA had relaxed the COVID-19 recording requirements for employers. OSHA recently rescinded that guidance and will now require all employers to record a COVID-19 illness if it is work-related. To aid employers in these determinations, OSHA has provided additional clarification as to how ...
A new week brings some important updates for employers related to their workplace health and safety obligations in the context of the current COVID-19 crisis:
- OSHA relaxes COVID-19 recording requirement for most employers.
As employers large and small increasingly implement work-from-home as a workforce response to the current health crisis, it’s a good time to brush up on the legal and practical issues remote working (“telecommuting”) presents.
Understanding that employers are responding in real time to this unfolding and unprecedented health crisis ...
Effective January 15, 2020, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) hiked the maximum fines for workplace safety violations. As an example, the maximum fine for a “serious” violation is now $13,500 per violation and the maximum fine for a “willful” or “repeated” violation is now $135,000 per violation.
OSHA ...
By Dan Burke & James Niekamp, Captain, U. S. Army Reserve’s JAG Corps
As we pause this week to remember and thank all those who have, and continue to serve our country in the armed forces, it’s a good opportunity to revisit best practices for supporting citizen soldiers in the workplace.
Employees who are members of the Reserve or National Guard ...
By Dan Burke & Alex Mattingly
The Department of Labor (DOL) this week made it easier for small businesses to band together to create joint 401(k) retirement plans for workers. The new rule takes effect September 30, 2019. Now particularly smaller businesses will have more ways to join together to offer retirement accounts to their workers.
Such ...
Effective June 27, 2019, Kentucky employers will need to provide additional accommodations to their pregnant workers who have limitations related to pregnancy, childbirth or a related medical condition. The “Kentucky Pregnant Workers Act” applies to employers with 15 or more employees within Kentucky.
These new protections include ...
Have you ever left the house only to later discover that your socks don’t match? I have!
While that kind of mismatch may be irritating, the Social Security Administration’s (SSA) recent return to a practice of sending “no match” letters to employers may prove even more troublesome.
The SSA has recently brought back a practice of sending ...
A recent case in Indiana federal court is a good illustration of the potentially long arm of the law prohibiting retaliation in the workplace.
Rachael Barter worked for AT&T until her termination in March, 2015. In April, she began working for NexLink Communications, which is a third party solutions provider for AT&T. In May, Barter filed a charge ...
Now that the election is behind us, all of your employees have stopped discussing political issues and there is peace and harmony in the universe, right? Ha! If only that were true. With the House switching from one party to another, political discord is likely to ramp up. Is your workplace at risk of becoming a tinderbox as employees debate and ...
By Catherine Gorman and Dan Burke
A recent decision by the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals (a federal court whose decisions apply to all Ohio and Kentucky employers) is a good reminder that employers must keep the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) in mind when managing pregnancy-related leaves of absence.
Emojis have quietly crept into the workplace over the last several years , particularly as the use of text messaging for work-related communications has increased.
As more and more employees express their thoughts with symbols instead of words, what’s an employer to do?
Using emojis in work-related communications can be a creative and fun ...
Overtime pay under the FLSA frequently causes confusion among higher education institutions due to the unique application of the FLSA’s “white collar” exemptions to these institutions. Thankfully, the Department of Labor (“DOL”) issued a fact sheet last week clarifying the FLSA’s application to many common higher education ...
If awards were given for offer letters, would yours be nominated for an Oscar?
A letter detailing an offer of employment to a candidate – an offer letter – is an important legal document and should be carefully drafted.
An Oscar-worthy offer letter should include the following:
- A clear description of what the job entails, to whom the employee ...