Breastfeeding in the Workplace – Protections for Employees and Requirements for Employers

Before former Governor Chris Christie left office, he signed into law a bill amending the New Jersey Law Against Discrimination to include protections for women breastfeeding. Now, the Law Against Discrimination specifically includes “breastfeeding” as a protected trait, with other traits such as race and sex.  This means that the Law Against Discrimination prohibits discrimination against an employee on the basis of that person breastfeeding.

The NLRB’S Ever Changing Joint Employer Rule

It is not easy these days trying to figure out what test the NLRB will utilize in determining whether one company is a “joint employer” of another.   On February 26, 2018, the NLRB vacated its decision in Hy-Brand Industrial Contractors, Ltd, decided just a few months earlier in December 2017, and restored the more expansive joint employer test announced in 2015 in Browning-Ferris Industries, which Hy-Brand had overruled.  Under Browning-Ferris, one company can be considered a joint employer of another if it just possesses “indirect control” or  “reserved authority” over the workers, even if it never exercised such control or authority.

Say what? …. You don’t have an Employee Handbook?

If you’re an employer and you do not have an Employee Handbook, or you have an outdated one, then you will want to keep reading.  Whether you are a small or large employer – or anywhere in between – an Employee Handbook can play an extremely important role in setting out the employer and employee expectations right from the beginning.

#MeToo Hits Employers Paying To Cover Up Misconduct

With limited exceptions, payments made by employers to settle lawsuits, and related attorneys’ fees, are generally deductible as ordinary and necessary business expenses. On December 22, 2017, the President signed reforms to the United States Tax Code.  Lost in the conversation about the changes to tax rates and various deductions is a provision, proposed by New Jersey Senator Robert Menendez, which may prevent employers from deducting payments made to settle claims for sexual harassment or sexual abuse and related legal fees.  Section 162(q) of the Internal Revenue Code now states that “[n]o deduction shall be allowed under this chapter for—(1) any settlement or payment related to sexual harassment or sexual abuse if such settlement or payment is subject to a nondisclosure agreement, or (2) attorney’s fees related to such a settlement or payment.”

Changes to Federal Law Allows More Unpaid Internships

With the Summer (finally) approaching, many employers are thinking of having “unpaid” internships for high school and college students. In recent years, however, such a program raised legal concerns over whether those interns were actually employees and had to be paid for their hours worked, as the U.S. Department of Labor under the Obama Administration had limited the circumstances in which an unpaid internship was truly “unpaid.”  However, USDOL guidance issued earlier in 2018 has changed all that – it will now be easier for employers to not pay their interns, as long as the “primary beneficiary” of the arrangement is the intern, i.e., a program that is primarily for the intern’s education and training.

Peter Frattarelli on Webinar “Pre-Employment Background Screening: FCRA, EEOC, Ban-the-Box, State and Local Law Compliance”