Employment

A group of female sales representatives alleging sex-based pay discrimination claims against their employer under the federal Equal Pay Act cleared an initial, but significant, hurdle last week when the Southern District of New York granted their motion for conditional certification of a collective action seeking more than $100 million in damages.

The Affordable Care Act’s (ACA) employer shared responsibility rules provide applicable large employers (i.e., those with 50 or more full-time and full-time equivalent employees on business days during the preceding calendar year) with a choice: make an offer of group health plan coverage to substantially all of the employer’s full-time employees or pay a non-deductible

Settlement appears imminent in an employee class action against Sony Pictures Entertainment (“SPE”) arising from disclosure of their personally identifiable information (“PII”) in a massive data breach allegedly perpetrated by North Korean hackers in retaliation for SPE’s release of “The Interview,” a satirical comedy depicting an attempt on the life of North Korean

Wasn't it just Memorial Day?  We cannot believe that summer is almost over.  We hope that you enjoy your long Labor Day weekend with friends and family, and we look forward to continuing to bring you the latest and greatest in employment law updates during the coming fall season.

If you tuned in to my appearance a few months ago on Bloomberg Law Radio, you heard me bemoaning our legal system’s failure to catch up with the gig economy.

One of the questions clients frequently pose to me is how to make employment policies uniform across the different states where their employees work.

My colleague, Don Schroeder was quoted in the SHRM article, “Northwestern Football Players’ Unionization Drive Halted” in which he analyzes the significance of the NLRB’s decision to decline to assert jurisdiction over the Northwestern Football Players’ unionization efforts.

When it comes to mergers and acquisitions involving at least one applicable large employer (ALE), the substantive rules governing employer shared responsibility (under Internal Revenue Code § 4980H) and the corresponding reporting rules (under Internal Revenue Code § 6056) share at least one thing in common: we don’t yet know how they work.

The NLRB dropped a major bomb on businesses in subcontracting, franchising, and temporary staffing relationships yesterday, adopting a new—very, very broad—definition of joint employment.

My colleague Wynter Deagle recently wrote a post on Privacy & Security Matters discussing some implications and lessons from the recent Ashley Madison hack and data dump. It's important to understand the increased risk for employers this data dump created.

Sorry, we couldn’t resist mixing our baseball metaphors.  In Bais Yaakov of Spring Valley v. ACT, Inc., the First Circuit affirmed a district court decision refusing to dismiss a putative class action as moot based on an unaccepted offer under FRCP 68 that defendant claimed would provide complete relief to the plaintiff.

Under a common strategy for controlling group health care plan costs, employers sometimes adopt arrangements under which an employee is offered cash as an incentive to waive coverage. These arrangements are colloquially referred to as “opt-out plans” or “opt-out arrangements.”

My colleague Jennifer Rubin was quoted in The San Diego Daily Transcript article entitled, “LGBT Advocates Shift Focus to Anti-Bias Law” that discussed LGBT supporters’ aim to pass a law offering greater non-discrimination protections.

Where, when, and how we work has changed profoundly since I started practicing law but employment and privacy laws have not evolved to keep up with technological change and the reality of the “everywhere” workplace.

My colleague Ray Cotton was quoted in an Inside Higher Ed article entitled, “No Golden Parachute,” which described the University of Illinois controversial decision to reject paying the $400,000 bonus to the departing chancellor Phyllis Wise.

As we reported last week, the IRS recently issued draft 2015 Instructions for Forms 1094-C and 1095-C. These instructions are of interest to applicable large employers who must report their compliance with the Affordable Care Act’s (ACA) rules governing employer shared responsibility.

My colleague Tyrone Thomas was quoted in a New York Times article entitled, “Union Ruling Underlines NCAA’s Evolution” addressing The National Labor Relations Board’s ruling that Northwestern football players could not unionize.

In Precia Jones v. SEPTA, the Third Circuit Court of Appeals last week joined six sister courts in finding that a suspension with pay typically does not constitute an “adverse employment action” within the meaning of Title VII and analogous Pennsylvania law.

In a mild surprise given the current constitution of the Board (read – majority appointed by President Obama), the NLRB declined to assert jurisdiction in ruling on the petition of Northwestern University’s scholarship football players to unionize.

A Seventh Circuit panel recently overruled its own precedent to hold that a defendant’s offer of full compensation in an offer of judgment under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 68 does not moot the litigation.