The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) issued proposed guidance entitled “Enforcement Guidance for Harassment in the Workplace” for employers enforcing laws that prohibit workplace harassment. The guidance, which the EEOC published in the Federal Register on October 2, 2023, provides the legal standards for workplace harassment claims and updated examples to illustrate situations that could lead to Read More

The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) issued a final rule on October 26, 2023, that expanded the standard for when two employers conducting business with one another are considered joint employers under the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA). Being joint employers subjects them to various responsibilities under the NLRA, including being potentially liable for the unfair labor practices of one another. The Read More

A disabled employee has sued his employer after he was fired for failing to return to the office following the COVID-19 pandemic. Zacchery Beval, who suffers from various medical conditions, has filed suit against his former employer, Electric Boat Corp., alleging discrimination under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) and the Connecticut Fair Employment Practices Act. He claims that Electric Boat failed to Read More

Gerdau Macsteel Inc. has agreed to settle a paternity leave case that could cost the steel manufacturer as much as $5 million. After Gerdau denied Nicholas Johnson, a non-union employee, six weeks of paid paternity leave after the birth of his child, Johnson sued the company under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act and Michigan’s Elliot-Larsen Civil Rights Act. He alleged that he and other male employees were denied Read More

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit has ruled that the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) may require employers to provide reasonable accommodations for employees to commute. However, the court declined to establish a bright-line rule about when the ADA requires such accommodations. The case is EEOC v. Charter Communications LLC, 7th Cir., No. 22-1231 (July 28, 2023). An employee at Charter Read More

The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) does not require employers to report employees as nonbinary on the EEO-1 form. While the form contains separate boxes for employers to designate male and female employees, there is no such box to designate an employee as nonbinary. However, the EEOC specifies that employers should use the comments section on the EEO-1 form to report these employees if they Read More

Pension funds for New York City and Oregon state have sued Fox Corp. and its board of directors in Delaware State Court, claiming that they promoted false reporting, thus inviting defamation suits, to the detriment of shareholders. According to the pension funds’ complaint, Fox News fails to ensure that its political narrative broadcasts are based on facts or credible sources. Unlike other media companies, it Read More

A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit recently heard oral arguments over whether the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) properly found that Rite Aid violated labor laws in unilaterally imposing a bargaining proposal concerning employee health care coverage. The appellate court also considered whether the NLRB acted appropriately in ordering Rite Aid to contribute to a union’s health Read More

The U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) has proposed increasing the annual salary threshold for white collar employee exemptions to overtime under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA). Under the DOL proposal, the overtime salary threshold would increase from $35,568 to $55,068, with automatic increases every three years. The revised standard would apply to all fifty states and U.S. territories, except American Read More

The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) has announced the adoption of its strategic plan to cover fiscal years 2022 – 2026. The main focus of the new strategic plan is to increase public access to the EEOC and increase resources for agency investigations. In its strategic plan, the EEOC plans to devote additional resources to training staff to identify, investigate, and enforce systemic Read More