OSHA’s position on temporary employees:  OSHA has released a Temporary Workers’ Rights Pamphlet and a Temporary Worker Initiative pamphlet (TWI pamphlets) on “Safety and Health in Shipyard Employment.” The TWI Pamphlet is a small handout card that reminds staffing agency employees that they “have the same rights as permanent workers.” The second TWI pamphlet, on Safety and Health in Shipyard Employment, is a ten-page summary of staffing employee safety laws, rules, and policies for shipyard employers and workers.  It is OSHA’s view that staffing agencies and host employers are “jointly responsible” for temporary workers’ safety and health. As these two newly published bulletins make clear, fulfilling the shared responsibility for temporary worker safety requires thoughtful coordination between staffing agencies and host employers. OSHA has previously acknowledged that a host employer may have more knowledge of the specific hazards associated with the host worksite, while the staffing agency has a more generalized safety responsibility to the employees.   Source:  Seyfarth Shaw 11/11/19

Cannabis use disorder on the rise: The authors of research published in JAMA Psychiatry argued that while policies have provided "important social benefits, particularly around issues of equity in criminal justice," the climb in conditions like cannabis use disorder are "a potential public health concern." Cannabis use disorder is where a person's use of the drug negatively affects their life over the course of 12 months. They might struggle to cut down, use so much it makes it hard to work or fulfil responsibilities in the home, and spend a lot of time taking the drug and recovering from its effects.  In adults aged 26 or older, the number who said they had used cannabis in the past month rose by 23% when compared with states where recreational use isn't allowed. Problematic cannabis use rose by 37%, from 0.90% to 1.23%, after recreational marijuana legalization. Marijuana for recreational use has been legalized in 11 states and the District of Columbia. Using weed occasionally is not thought to cause substantial problems, the authors said. But long-term, heavy use is linked to physical and psychological problems, as well as lower educational attainment, decline in social class, unemployment, and motor vehicle crashes, they wrote.  Source: Newsweek 11/14/19

States are wising up on pay disparity and misclassification settlements:  New Jersey has hit Uber with a $650 million bill stemming from years of unpaid unemployment and disability taxes in a blockbuster assessment that experts say will reverberate throughout the gig economy and across the country. Auditors with the New Jersey Department of Labor and Workforce Development said the ride-hailing company stiffed the state by misclassifying its drivers as independent contractors rather than employees, in the latest threat to a gig economy already under attack by blue states and plaintiffs’ attorneys.  This could be problematic for wage and hour, OFCCP, and other agencies with employers overpay issues, from misclassification to disparity.  States may follow-up with their own actions against the employer who settles.   With tax lawsuits at stake, including potentially criminal actions, more employers may be less inclined to settle.  Source: Law360 11/15/19

Greatest compliance risk?  Texting: Text messages are too hot to handle for many financial companies, according to the “Electronic Communications Compliance Survey Report” by communication archiving provider Smarsh. 77% of the 300 information technology and compliance leaders and practitioners in North America that Smarsh contacted for the survey said text messaging was their greatest compliance risk.  The heightened risk stems from leveraging review platforms that weren’t designed for text messages, said Smarsh information governance senior director Robert Cruz. He added, “Now you have communications sprinkled with more emojis and nontext characters. They can be significant and convey sentiment.” Despite text messages being a top compliance fear, companies are also struggling to archive popular social media platforms, despite allowing employees to use them for work. 49% said Instagram communication was allowed by the company without specific archiving solutions, above Facebook (28%), collaboration platforms (25%), and LinkedIn and Twitter (20% each). While 54% prohibit text messaging for business communications, 40% said their company allows text messaging without an archiving or supervision protocol. Cruz explained there’s still a fairly low awareness of solutions that can segregate business and personal text messages.  Source: Law.com 11/15/19

Are your breastfeeding policies and processes compliant? According to Acelleron's latest Human Resources Report, 90% of breastfeeding moms are either pumping at work, or are planning to pump at work, despite breastfeeding being one of the biggest challenges when returning to work from parental leave.   "With the increasing trend of moms wanting to feed their babies human milk, companies need to better support breastfeeding employees returning to work," Jason Canzano, managing director of Acelleron, said. "When looking at some of the key statistics in our report, only 50% of our moms' employers have a lactation/mother's room to pump in, and 78% of these moms stated their employer has greater than 50 employees, meaning these companies are not meeting the federal requirements for protecting breastfeeding women in the workplace. The good news, despite many employers not having a room to pump in, almost 83% of moms still feel their employers are supportive of their breastfeeding/pumping needs," Canzano said. "However, nearly 25% of the moms surveyed have considered a job/career change due to their need to pump at work. Despite the improving nursing laws and employer benefits, employers still need to do a better job supporting breastfeeding mothers returning to work."   Source: Acelleron Nov 2019

Women working in Japan shouldn’t wear glasses:  An employers’ guide for women working in Japan recommends that women should wear long skirts in the workplace. Hair should be worn up in a neat ponytail or bun. Flats are preferable to heels in most situations. Short skirts (which are considered inappropriate) and high heels invite disrespect and condescension from male co-workers. Most Japanese companies also prefer that women not wear jewelry to work.  Now comes the eyeglass issue – Japanese women are fighting for the right to wear eyeglasses to work, a new front in the growing movement that demands an end to the prescriptive beauty standards faced by female employees.  Previously Japanese women were fighting the requirement of wearing makeup at work.  Source:  Bloomberg 11/8/19, Just Landed Japan

Bipartisan effort to amend FMLA to eliminate marriage penalty:  Senator Joni Ernst (R-Iowa), joined by Senators Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.), Mike Lee (R-Utah), and Tina Smith (D-Minn.) introduced a bill  to ensure married couples who work for the same employer are not restricted in the amount of leave they can take under the law.   The FAIR Leave Act—or Fair Access for Individuals to Receive Leave Act will repeal this limitation.   The bill enables eligible spouses working for the same employer to each take up to 12 work weeks (24 total) of unpaid leave in a 12-month period for the following FMLA-qualifying reasons:   the birth of a son or daughter; the placement and adoption of a child; or the care of a parent with a serious health condition. It will also allow eligible spouses to each take 26 weeks to care for a covered servicemember with a serious injury or illness.  Source:  CCH 11/18/19