Employment

The National Labor Relations Board is attempting to expand the reach of the National Labor Relations Act once again – this time the NLRB’s Office of the General Counsel authorized formal complaints against McDonald’s USA, LLC, despite the fact that the alleged unfair labor practices occurred in restaurants owned by franchisees, and not McDonald’s.

While employers sometimes view the Affordable Care Act’s employer shared responsibility (or “pay-or-play”) rules in isolation, they don’t operate that way. Instead, they exist side-by-side with other provisions of the Act.

Federal contractors must be straining their necks to see if they have an actual target on their backs. Last week, President Obama signed an executive order that requires federal contractors to disclose labor and employment law violations dating back three years.

I recently wrote an article for SHRM's HR Magazine about Revenge Porn -- a vicious new way to smear someone’s professional reputation.

My colleague Donald Schroeder is quoted in this Corporate Counsel piece in which he comments on the potential effects of the legalization of micro labor unions on employers and the unionization landscape as a whole. The article focuses on the July 22nd ruling by the National Labor Relations Board in support of micro union organization efforts in the retail industry.

There is no such thing as “per se” unenforceability of non-compete agreements (with a few notable exceptions). Instead, a court will enforce a non-compete if it meets whatever criteria a particular jurisdiction establishes

Last week, Alabama Governor Robert Bentley removed Alabama State University Trustee Marvin Wiggins for violating the University’s conflict of interest rules. The removal proved once again that if you are responsible for the oversight of an organization’s governance or operations, you must be mindful of your family’s relationship to that organization.

The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA) ushered in broad national standards aimed at improving the efficiency and effectiveness of the U.S. health care system.

We all know the default American Rule for attorneys’ fees: unless you get fees in a contract or from a statute, you shouldn’t count on someone else paying the freight if you win your case.

Recently, union leaders at the Long Island Railroad and representatives of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority finally reached a deal to avoid a strike. If a strike had occurred, businesses would have faced a potentially significant loss of employee productivity as more than 300,000 daily commuters travel to and from Long Island each day.

On July 22, 2014, two federal appellate courts issued conflicting decisions, within hours of each other, regarding the IRS final rule published on May 23, 2012 (the “IRS Rule”), intended to implement the exchange-related tax credit provisions of the Affordable Care Act (“ACA” or the “Act”).

Earlier this month, we wrote about New Jersey’s proposed “ban the box” measure—a law that would prohibit employers from inquiring about job candidates’ criminal histories early in the hiring process—heading to Governor Chris Christie’s desk. It’s still sitting there, so no news on that front.

My colleague Drew Matzkin is quoted in this Society for Human Resource Management piece in which he comments on the importance of employers keeping an employee’s performance issues separate from the individual’s use of FMLA-leave. The article focuses on the rising rate of FMLA abuse and specific tactics employers can take to contain it.

For applicable large employers (i.e., employers who employed at least 50 full-time and full-time equivalent employees on business days during the preceding calendar year) endeavoring to comply with the Affordable Care Act’s employer shared responsibility rules, determining an employee’s status as “full-time” is critically important.

A non-compete agreement is a vital tool that companies use to protect their confidential and trade secret information and their customer and employee relationships. Employers, of course, want to avoid the trouble of running to court to enforce their non-compete agreements, but if they do, they better make sure their non-competes will withstand a judge’s scrutiny.

With so much focus on the reasonableness of restrictive covenants, it’s easy to forget that non-competes are plain old contracts—nothing more. And when it comes to enforcing non-competes, basic contract law still applies.

The California Supreme Court recently held that a trial court needed to revisit its class certification decision regarding newspaper carriers who alleged that they should have been classified as employees rather than independent contractors.

The EEOC released its updated enforcement guidance on pregnancy discrimination yesterday -- the first time it's done so in more than 30 years. You can access the guidance and related documents here.

The Employer Shared Responsibility provisions of the Affordable Care Act (“ACA”) generally require “applicable large employers” (i.e., employers who employed at least 50 full-time and full-time equivalent employees on business days during the preceding calendar year) to offer group health plan coverage or face the prospect of having to pay an assessable payment.

Employers and insurers offering medical plans: take note! Two important final regulations issued jointly by the IRS, DOL and HHS (the “Departments”) are now in effect.