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On January 5, 2022, the Federal Trade Commission issued a proposed rule that would ban nearly all non-compete clauses in employment agreements – both existing and future. As set forth in the FTC’s accompanying Fact Sheet, non-compete provisions violate the Federal Trade Commission Act, which prohibits “unfair methods of competition […]

In a December 8, 2022 blog post, Secretary of Labor Marty Walsh announced that the U.S. Department of Labor has created new resources to help workers who have cancer or have family members with cancer. A website collects information and resources for those employees on the following topics: leave under […]

As federal contractors may recall, President Biden issued an Executive Order that required their employees to be fully vaccinated against COVID-19 in accordance with guidance from the Safer Federal Workforce Task Force. This order was subject to legal challenge, including by the States of Louisiana, Mississippi and Indiana, and the […]

Although unionized employers have no choice but to comply with the law, they may have choices about how to accomplish that – and may be required to bargain with the union over those decisions, as the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit recently reiterated. In NLRB v. Frontier […]

In a recent blog post, the National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health noted that temporary workers provided to a host employer by staffing companies experience higher injury rates than regular employees. To address this issue, NIOSH developed Temporary Workers: Best Practices for Host Employers, along with checklists and other […]

The federal minimum wage remains $7.25, with a tipped wage rate of $2.13; however, most states in the mid-Atlantic region have implemented higher minimum wage rates. (The tipped wage rate for tipped employees, together with any tip credit, must meet the minimum wage. Employers are responsible for making up any […]

Title VII prohibits discrimination based on the creation of a hostile work environment – meaning that working conditions are so “permeated with discriminatory intimidation, ridicule, and insult” that they “alter the conditions of the victim’s employment and create an abusive working environment.” The law also prohibits retaliation for complaining about […]

In addition to the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act discussed elsewhere in this E-Update, the 2023 federal omnibus spending act also included the Providing Urgent Maternal Protections for Nursing Mothers Act (“PUMP” Act). This new law expands the existing lactation accommodations for nursing mothers under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA). […]

The District of Columbia City Council has passed bills that expand protections for several categories: domestic workers, interns, independent contractors and the homeless. It also enshrines into law a definition of harassment that will result in more employees bringing and winning harassment claims before D.C. agencies and courts. The Domestic […]

“Omnibus” is defined as providing for many things at once, and the new federal omnibus funding bill is exactly that. In addition to the critical action of funding the government, it contains a multitude of unrelated new laws, including the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act (as well as the new workplace […]