More Employment Laws Affecting Lawyers (and their clients, too)

This year has seen myriad changes in state and federal employment affecting all employers - and even the lawyers who represent them. This new presentation to the Napa County Bar Association contains valuable advice for all businesses, showing how similar the legal industry is to all other types of workplaces.

Our September 26 presentation covers many of these changes, such as:

• Minimum Wage Changes

• Indoor Heat Regulations

• Workplace Violence Prevention

• Ergonomic Safety

• Paid Sick Leave Increase

• New-Hire Notices

• Non-Compete Agreements

• Retaliation

A copy of the presentation can be viewed (and shared) by clicking here.

2024 Employment Law Update

We will be presenting 2024 employment law updates throughout January of 2024. The presentation will cover new laws from the past year as well as recent administrative, labor and enforcement developments. Some topics include:

• Minimum wages and industry-specific wage requirements

• Changes to California new-hire notices

• Leaves of absence and enhanced sick pay accruals

• Cannabis use as an equal employment opportunity category

• New retaliation and local enforcement standards

• Non-compete agreements and restrictive covenants

• Workplace violence prevention plan and training requirements

• COVID-19 exposure notification and current workplace standards

• Independent contractor status development

• Federal NLRB authority affecting all employers' handbooks and policies

• Examples of recent caselaw affecting employee reimbursement, bonus overtime calculations, religion accommodation, workplace dilemmas, ministerial exception, and reasonable accommodation

View a copy of the 2024 update via this link.

New NLRB Employer Handbook and Policy Standards - Presentation

On August 2, 2023, the National Labor Relations Board adopted strict new standards for gauging the validity of an employer's written policies.

Under the new standards, employer polices (such as handbook language) are presumptively unlawful if any employee planning to engage in protected activity under the National Labor Relations Act could reasonably interpret the policy to prohibit, or retaliate against, such conduct.

An employer may justify presumptively unlawful policies by showing a legitimate business justification, but the employer must also show that there are no other reasonable alternatives.

The new standard returns to policy first adopted during the Obama administration and rejected by a subsequent Republican-majority Board. Only time will tell whether further reversals may occur depending on the outcome of future elections.

The August 2 decision in Stericycle, Inc. can be downloaded here.

We discuss the new standards, policies likely to be affected, different NLRB General Counsel's guidance, and strategies for compliance in a presentation to PASCO (the Professional Association of Sonoma County) during its 2023 Annual HR Conference in Santa Rosa, California. A .pdf copy of the PowerPoint presentation and embedded links can be viewed here.