Employment Law Alerts

The U.S. Department of Labor finalized its overtime rule which will become effective on January 1, 2020. Notably, the DOL increased the threshold for the FLSA overtime exemption from $23,660 to $35,568 per year, or $684 per week. The DOL also increased the "highly compensated worker" threshold from $100,000 to $107,432. This seemingly brought an end to a period of uncertainty which began on ...

Earlier this year the EEOC announced it would reinstate the collection of EEO-1 Component 2 data, thus requiring employers to submit pay data broken own by job category, sex, race, and ethnicity. The deadline for employers to submit Component 2 data for 2017 and 2018 remains September 30, 2019. The Component 2 EEO-1 Pay Data online filing system is available on the EEOC's website along with a ...

Connecticut recently made several noteworthy changes to its sexual harassment laws designed to help eliminate harassment, prevent retaliation against claimants and expand protection when claims are made. Eliminate Harassment Prior to the enactment of the new law, Connecticut employers were required to post in the workplace information regarding sexual harassment and available remedies. Under the ...

It is now much easier for employees in New York to assert claims of workplace harassment. In the past, in order to bring a claim of workplace harassment in New York, employees were required to demonstrate that the alleged harassment was either severe or pervasive. Employees no longer have to satisfy that burden. In addition, New York's new statute allows a prevailing plaintiff to recover punitive ...

As previously reported in our Alert published on March 7, 2019, a federal judge has ordered the EEOC to provide guidance regarding the collection of wage and hour data ("Component 2 data").  On April 4, the EEOC submitted a filing to the court saying it would have to engage a third-party contractor, at a cost of over $3 million, in order to process the Component 2 data. Even though the judge has ...

On March 29, 2019, the Massachusetts Department of Family and Medical Leave (“DFML”) re-issued draft regulations on the Massachusetts Paid Family and Medical Leave Act (“PFML”). DFML will hold at least two public hearings, beginning in May. There will also be a period for written comments. Final regulations should be published before July 1, 2019. PFML will require Massachusetts employers to ...

 In September 2016, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission ("EEOC") expanded its collection efforts to include summary W-2 pay data and total hours worked by race, ethnicity, and gender from employers that already file the EEO-1 report (e.g., private employers with over 100 employees and federal contractors with more than 50 employees). This initiative was intended to help close the pay gap ...

  On February 24, 2019, New York state's Gender Expression Non-Discrimination Act ("GENDA") went into effect.  GENDA prohibits all employers with four or more employees from discriminating against workers on the basis of their actual or perceived gender identity, gender expression, or their transgender status.   Gender identity or expression is defined as having gender identity, self image, ...

There is generally a gnashing of teeth when a key employee leaves for a competitor, and that gnashing may evolve into weeping when an employer finds that its noncompetition protections are unenforceable. Massachusetts has long followed most states by enforcing noncompetition agreements that are narrowly-tailored to protect the company’s legitimate business interests, without being over-broad. The ...

The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission ("EEOC") announced that it has delayed the filing due date for the EEO-1 Report. The EEO-1 Report is a compliance survey mandated by federal statute and regulations. The survey requires company employment data to be categorized by race/ethnicity, gender, and job category. The data which employers report in the survey helps the EEOC in deterring ...