Traditionally, January 1 has been the key date for which employers must prepare to implement new labor and employment compliance obligations for new laws passed within the previous year. For the past several years, we have reported on employment and labor laws taking effect mid-year. Increasingly, new compliance challenges are not taking a summer vacation.
This year, preventing employment discrimination remains a significant employment law and regulatory concern, with legislatures continuing to expand the protected classifications beyond those protected under federal law, and creating new limitations on what demographic and pay-related information an employer may seek from job applicants. Leave protections and entitlements, always a major player in the legislative landscape, are again significant this year, with some states enacting new paid family and medical leave benefits programs, and others expanding their existing paid sick and safe leave laws so that employees may use accrued leave for bereavement and other reasons beyond the traditional sick and safe leave purposes. Other popular topics for regulation this year include the contingent workforce and freelance/gig economy, child labor, and reproductive health.
Washington State again leads the pack as the most active jurisdiction in enacting eight new state-wide and local laws and regulations that take effect in early summer. Colorado takes second place, enacting at least seven new laws that take effect during summer...
Foley partner Lisa Noller, Chair of the Firm’s Litigation Department, will be speaking at the American Bar Association’s Qui Tam & Civil False Claims and Healthcare Fraud Institute in Washingt...