Compliance Stuff

  Ramadan is coming up soon, so now is a good time to consider religious accommodations and legal protections for Muslim employees. Quick Hits Employers may need to provide religious accommodations to Muslim workers during the month of Ramadan. Ramadan will begin on the evening of February 28, 2025, or March 1, 2025, depending on the moon. Ramadan will end on the evening of March 29, 2025, or March 30, 2025, with the Eid al-Fitr holiday to begin the following day. Ramadan is expected to begin on the evening of February 28, 2025, and end on the evening of March 30, 2025. Because the Islamic calendar is a lunar calendar, the exact start and end dates of Ramadan depend on sightings of the crescent moon . Each year, Ramadan lasts twenty-nine or thirty days. Eid al-Fitr is the religious holiday celebrated the day after Ramadan. Muslims observing Ramadan abstain from eating and drinking from dawn—approximately an hour and a half before sunrise—until dusk every day during Ramadan. Many Mu...

  Massachusetts just released frequently asked questions (FAQs) to help employers comply with the wage data reporting aspect of the state’s new  pay transparency law . Quick Hits Massachusetts issued new FAQs containing details for employers on how they can meet their obligations when reporting wage data pursuant to the state’s new pay transparency law. Employers in Massachusetts will need to submit workforce demographic information to the state each year under a new law. Covered employers must submit their most recently filed EEO-1 report to the state by February 3, 2025 . Employers need not provide customized reports, nor do they need to include pay data. The federal government requires certain employers to submit workforce demographic data in a report, called an EEO-1 form, each year. On July 31, 2024, Governor Maura Healey signed the  Francis Perkins Workplace Equity Act , which requires Massachusetts employers with one hundred or more employees (and which are subject...