The Maine Legislature has passed LD 1751, which extends Governor Mills' previous Emergency Order permitting on-premise retailers to sell beer, wine, and cocktails "to-go" until March 30, 2025. The bill now proceeds to the Governor, whom we expect to sign the legislation into law. Since the present authorization expires on March 30, 2022, so we expect quick action by the Governor.
On May 19, 2020, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) altered its policy regarding an employer’s obligation to record cases of COVID-19 in the workplace. Previously, OSHA required only employers in the healthcare/emergency responder/correctional institution fields to record positive cases of the Coronavirus and to determine if the case was work related.
As we have previously described, there are changes to State and Federal law granting employees leave related to COVID-19. Changes from the April 3rd budget bill in New York, however, includes a new sick leave law, unrelated to the pandemic. The new law will require employers to provide job-protected, paid sick leave to their employees beginning on January 1, 2021.
New York State’s annual budget bill, signed by Gov. Cuomo on April 3, contains amendments to New York’s voting leave law as well as a new, non-coronavirus-related paid sick leave law. The sick leave law will not go into effect functionally until next year. The voting leave amendments, which go into effect immediately, constitute a surprising about-face from the Legislature’s voting leave changes in 2019.
Directly from the NLRB – The National Labor Relations Board will not extend its temporary suspension of Board-conducted elections past April 3, 2020 and will instead resume conducting elections beginning Monday, April 6, 2020. On March 19, 2020, because of the extraordinary circumstances related to the COVID-19 pandemic, the NLRB had ordered the temporary suspension of all Board-conducted elections through April 3, 2020.
As part of the $2 trillion pandemic stimulus Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security Act (CARES Act) expected to be passed and signed in to law today, there are loan opportunities for “mid-sized” businesses and not for profit organizations with between 500 and 10,000 employees.
The Fifth Circuit recently affirmed summary judgment against an employee caught sleeping at his desk. A personnel manager for a security company suffered from Type II diabetes and had previously requested and received reasonable accommodations, but none involved the employee’s potential loss of consciousness due to diabetes.
The National Labor Relations Board held that an employer has no obligation to continue deducting union dues from employee paychecks pursuant to a dues checkoff provision in a collective bargaining agreement (CBA) after the CBA expires.
The NLRB overruled Lincoln Lutheran of Racine, 362 NLRB 1655 (2015), in which the Board held an employer continues to have an obligation to deduct union dues from employee paychecks despite the expiration of a CBA containing a dues checkoff provision on which the deductions were based.
Today's decision overturns Lincoln Lutheran of Racine, 362 NLRB 1655 (2015), and returns Board precedent to the rule established under Bethlehem Steel, 136 NLRB 1500 (1962).
As we are in the midst of the holiday season, it is a good time for employers to review their policies and take preventative measures to ensure festivities do not get out of hand at office holiday parties. The dangers of blurring the lines between professional conduct and holiday celebrations was demonstrated in a recent case out of the United States District Court for the Eastern District of California.
In a recent decision, the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) concluded that the National Captioning Institute, Inc. (NCI) engaged in unlawful surveillance of their employees’ private Facebook group dedicated to discussions about unionization. The employer repeatedly solicited and received reports from an employee about the group’s membership and messages posted on the group’s Facebook page.