It was a busy legislative session in Colorado this year, with Governor Jared Polis signing more than 470 new bills into law. Included among the new legislation are four laws that will create sweeping changes to the state’s employment landscape: the Protecting Opportunities and Workers’ Rights (POWR) Act, the Job Application Fairness Act (JAFA), amendments to the Colorado Healthy Families and Workplace Act, and amendments to the Colorado Equal Pay for Equal Work Act.
Below, we highlight the new rights and obligations created under each of these laws and identify key steps employers with Colorado workforces should take now to ensure compliance.
Unless otherwise noted, all new laws and amendments discussed below took effect on August 7, 2023. Each of these new laws and amendments applies to private employers with at least one employee in Colorado.
The POWR Act amends several components of the Colorado Anti-Discrimination Act (CADA), including revising the definition of unlawful “harassment,” expanding employment discrimination protections to include marital status, and adding new provisions regarding nondisclosure agreements (NDAs) and recordkeeping obligations.
The POWR Act explicitly rejects the federal “severe and pervasive” standard for unlawful harassment and replaces it with a lower standard, which prohibits any “unwelcome physical or verbal conduct or any written, pictorial, or visual...
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