Compliance Stuff

Vermont will soon join nine other states across the country which require employers to disclose compensation in job postings. Governor Phil Scott signed the bill into law Tuesday and it will take effect on July 1, 2025 — which means employers should start preparing for new obligations. Here’s what employers in Vermont and across New England need to know about the new law.  Employers’ Wage Disclosure Obligations Under H.704, Vermont employers with five or more employees will be required to disclose the compensation or compensation range for a particular position beginning on July 1, 2025. However, there are some exceptions to this general compensation disclosure requirement: An advertisement for a job opening that is paid on a commission basis, whether wholly or in part, should disclose this fact but is not required to disclose the compensation or range for the position. An advertisement for a job opening that is paid on a tipped basis should disclose this fact and provide the base ...

Minnesota has strengthened its laws relating to the misclassification of employees in general, and in the construction industry specifically. For non-construction employers, damages and penalties available that can be imposed for the misclassification of a worker as an independent contractor include: (1) compensatory damages to the individual wrongly classified, which can include: the value of supplemental pay including minimum wage, overtime, shift differentials; vacation and sick pay and other forms of paid time off; health insurance; life and disability insurance; retirement and related savings plans; social security and Medicare; and any other cost and expense incurred by the individuals resulting from the improper classification; (2) a penalty of up to $10,000 for each individual wrongly classified or related violations of the statute; (3) a penalty of $1,000 for any delay, obstruction, or failure to cooperate in an investigation by the commissioner (each day of delay, obstruction...

 The Minnesota legislature made slight adjustments to the state’s pregnancy accommodation law and the pregnancy and parental leave law that will go into effect Aug. 1, 2024. The amendments clarify that when an employee takes leave as a pregnancy accommodation or pursuant to Minnesota’s pregnancy and parental leave law, employers must maintain the employee’s coverage under any group insurance policy, group subscriber contract, or healthcare plan for the employee and any dependents as if the employee was still working. However, employers can continue requiring employees to pay their share of the premium for any such benefits. Additionally, employers may not count any time an employee takes off work to attend prenatal care medical appointments against the employee’s 12-week leave entitlement under the pregnancy and parental leave law. Source(s):    JacksonLewis , received on June 4, 2024;  JacksonLewis , accessed on June 6, 2024.

 Under Minnesota’s Paid Leave Law (PLL) that goes into effect in January 2026, employers must provide covered employees up to 20 weeks of leave to care for themselves and their family members with paid leave benefits available through the Minnesota Paid Leave Program. Although the PLL was passed on May 25, 2023, employees will not be able to access paid leave benefits until January 1, 2026 . In the interim, legislators and agency personnel are working to answer questions and fill information gaps. Three important recent developments concerning the PLL include: (1) new guidance from Minnesota’s Department of Employment and Economic Development (MN DEED) for employees and employers, (2) amendments to the PLL signed into law by Governor Tim Walz on May 24, 2024, which allow for increases to payroll taxes to implement the PLL and (3) amendments which provide a comprehensive scheme for appeals and calculating benefit amounts, among other changes. New Guidance On May 15, 2024, MN DEED pu...

How employers deal with politics in the workplace involves a wide range of issues, including an organization’s brand, reputation, and values. Politics in the workplace implicates a substantial number of labor and employment laws, including anti-discrimination laws, the National Labor Relations Act, state mandatory employer-sponsored meeting bans, and voting leave laws. Indeed, conversations regarding political issues can lead to claims of employer discrimination, harassment, or retaliation in violation of federal, state, and local employment anti-discrimination laws. Employers should be aware of their rights to restrict politics in the workplace as well as employees’ rights in this area. With the upcoming election, employers should be fully prepared to act proactively to mitigate issues before they arise. Doing so will lower the risk of employee complaints and simultaneously improve productivity in the workplace. As the 2024 election approaches, protests continue across the country, an...

 The regulation of artificial intelligence (AI) has drawn significant interest from policymakers in the US, particularly at the state level. There has been a recent slew of legislative activity with respect to comprehensive AI bills across various states. We expect to see this new wave of comprehensive AI regulation at the state level continue to increase over the coming months. Early state AI laws have the potential to exert an outsized influence on the trajectory of AI regulation in the US.  The need to develop comprehensive AI laws inherently stems from a need to ensure consumer protection in the use of AI – including ensuring transparent and nondiscriminatory use of AI and appropriate protections regarding the collection and processing of personal data in connection with AI. To this point, regulators appear to be focused on how companies are using consumer personal data to train and develop their AI and machine-learning models and algorithms. As we discussed in this Januar...

 On April 4, 2024, Governor Tina Kotek signed HB 4156 to modernize and expand protections under Oregon’s anti-stalking laws.  The new law criminalizes newer forms of threatening and predatory conduct which have emerged with the technological advances of recent decades.  The new law also impacts Oregon employers by expanding employees’ access to paid and unpaid safe leave benefits. It has long been a crime in Oregon to cause someone reasonable apprehension about their personal safety by knowingly alarming or coercing that person through repeated and unwanted contact.  The term “repeated and unwanted contact” was generally defined to include only instances of direct physical presence (e.g., following a victim or lying in wait outside their homes and schools), or unwanted communications.  That definition reflected traditional concepts of stalking behavior but failed to address newer forms of bad conduct, including, for example, forms of online harassment and the th...

 Employers must proceed carefully when responding to complaints around pronoun use where federal and state mandates appear to conflict. For instance, Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) guidance states that misgendering can constitute a violation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act when done intentionally (Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity (SOGI) Discrimination); on the other hand, Florida law prevents a public school teacher from using her personal pronouns and titles when communicating with students at school. Florida Case Florida’s “Let Kids Be Kids” law took effect on July 1, 2023. The law makes it “the policy of every [Florida] public K-12 educational institution … that a person’s sex is an immutable biological trait and that it is false to ascribe to a person a pronoun that does not correspond to such person’s sex.” § 1000.071(1), Florida Statutes. The statute also prohibits all employees or contractors of public K-12 educational institutions from using a st...

 On May 24, 2024, Governor Walz signed into law the Minnesota Consumer Data Privacy Act (MNCDPA). This landmark law is the first set of comprehensive consumer privacy standards specific to Minnesota residents. The law will take effect on July 31, 2025, for most covered entities. Who Must comply with the MNCDPA? The law applies to entities that control or process personal data from a significant number of Minnesota residents, or that derive a significant amount of their gross revenue from the sale of personal data. Specifically, it applies to entities that (1) control or process personal data of at least 100,000 Minnesota residents during a year or, (2) derive over 25% of their gross revenue from selling personal data and process or control personal data of at least 25,000 Minnesota residents . These threshold limits are similar to those in many of the other states that have enacted comprehensive consumer data privacy laws. The MNCDPA also contains several exclusions. For example, ...

 In an unprecedented action, federal workplace law officials just filed suit against 15 employers in 10 states alleging that they failed to file their mandatory EEO-1 reports and asking the court to order the employers to do so without delay. With the deadline for 2023 reports rapidly approaching, these lawsuits filed by the EEOC serve as a wake-up call to any employer that has not been meeting its reporting deadlines. With the 2023 filing deadline right around the corner – June 4 – what do you need to know about this landmark litigation and what five steps should you take if you haven’t yet filed your EEO-1 report? EEOC Takes Aim at 15 Employers The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) filed federal lawsuits against 15 employers in the past week, alleging they failed to comply with mandatory federal reporting requirements by not filing their EEO-1 reports.  The lawsuits were filed in 10 states across the country, including New York, Florida, Georgia, Ohio, North Car...

While Connecticut was the first state to require private employers to provide paid sick leave, its current statute is limited in coverage, as it only applies to employers with 50 or more employees in the state and only requires such employers to provide paid sick leave to employees who meet the definition of service worker (as defined by law).  The new law will eliminate the service worker criteria, so that all Connecticut employees are eligible for paid sick leave (with limited exceptions for seasonal employees and certain unionized employees). The new law will also reduce the minimum employee threshold for meeting the definition of a covered employer in three phases, as follows: Effective January 1, 2025 : the requirements will apply to employers that employ 25 or more employees in the state; Effective January 1, 2026 :  employers that employ 11 or more employees in in the state will be covered; Effective January 1, 2027 : employers that employ at least 1 employee in the s...