…or just more sensitive?  The election of 2016 opened the doors for filters to be filed away leading many employers to re-establish their work speech policies.  However, with the pandemic and work from home, it appears that rudeness is again creeping into the workplace.  

California legislature passed S.B. 1162 and is currently waiting for the Governor’s signature, creating new obligations for California employers by amending the earlier pay reporting requirements. 

Does your organization award perfect attendance?  Is it done on a weekly, monthly, quarterly, or yearly basis?  And what does perfect attendance mean exactly?  Perfect attendance needs to also take into account the variety of days that should still be counted towards perfect attendance without penalizing the employee for taking them.

As the great resignation continues and employees who leave get generally 6% growth in salary than those who stay, a lot of people have argued that wage growth is the key driver of inflation.  However, not yet as many economists say the same.  

Earlier this year, the OFCCP released Directive 2022-01: Advancing Pay Equity Through Compensation Analysis.  There was a lot of controversy over the directive, both with respect to expected analysis and analysis to be submitted when a compliance officer requested it.  For the latter, the agency generated discord in the compliance sector, because it was seemingly saying attorney/client privilege can be overturned by the agency. 

2022 is a banner year for union organizing.  1,411 U.S. workplaces filed petitions with the National Labor Relations Board according to a Wall Street Journal analysis of federal data, which represents a 69% increase from the same period in 2021 and the most of any year since 2015.  Yet only 10.3% of workers were in unions, down from 29.3% in 1964 according to studies.  Of the 1,411 workplaces filing petitions filed, about 400, representing more than 21,000 workers, have...

A new case has been filed in the Northern District of Texas which could upend the Fair Labor Standards Act law (FLSA).  The new case attacks the two-prong approach of the U.S. Department of Labor of establishing exempt employee thresholds using a salary hurdle test and then the duties test. 

With the great resignation, the labor pricing dilemma for many manufacturing organizations, and the rise of less skilled labor (can anyone find an electrical engineer these days?), the move to automation seems inevitable.  For example, with the rise of artificial intelligence, anyone could be a programmer with the AI predicting the next line.  For DEI professionals it becomes a way to create diversity in the programming ranks.  According to a recent study, 47% of U.S. jobs are...

Last week, the Michigan Supreme Court in a 5-2 decision ruled in the Rouch World LLC v. Department of Civil Rights (SC Docket 162482) case that sexual orientation is covered by “sex” in the Elliott-Larsen Act. This case was brought by businesses that denied services to customers who were either a same-sex couple or an individual who was transitioning their gender identity for religious reasons. Defendants in the lawsuit include Uprooted Electrolysis LLC, based in Gwinn, and Rouch...

The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) commissioned a report by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (NAS), which studied the EEOC’s historic, first-time collection of pay data from certain private employers and federal contractors completed in 2020. The NAS study was commissioned by a unanimous vote of the bipartisan Commission in 2020. 

In a recent situation that not only involved religious beliefs but also medical needs, a Walgreens’ employee refused to sell a male contraceptive to a married woman because it violated their faith.  Walgreens policy allows for employees to do this.  A Walgreens spokesperson said that its employees are allowed to “step away from completing a transaction to which they have a moral objection.”  A manager eventually sold the contraceptive to the woman. 

A number of questions have come through the ASE HR Hotline about immigration issues from E-Verify to H-1B increases.  The best answer currently is when immigration reform happens, if it does, it will be a bipartisan effort.  E-Verify will likely be required of all employers, and H-1B visas may be increased.  Any questions about Dreamers (estimated to be around 3.6 million) and those children of H-1Bs who aged out of the process (estimated to be about 200,000 or so) will likely...

Layoffs, what?  In this market?  Employers cannot find workers and yet now there is talk of retrenchment.  Whether soft or hard landing, most agree that a recession is coming. 

Although there were a number of ancillary issues with the recent U.S. Supreme Court case of Kennedy v. Bremerton School District, No. 21-418 (June 27, 2022), a major question for employers is how to now regulate religion in the workplace.  At first blush, the Kennedy decision seemed to be about a public high school teacher leading a prayer with students at the 50-yard line after a football game, separation of church and state, but it has broader implications as to religion in the...

With the holiday behind us and the pandemic winding its way leading to more normalcy, the ability to rest and essentially take it easy is creating an opportunity to recharge and become more productive.  With most organizations offering limited time off, depending on the number of years the employee has worked, time off can range from 10 days to 25 days according to ASE’s 2022 Michigan Policies & Practices Survey.