EverythingPeople This Week!

As we wait for the OSHA guidance detailing how employers (over 100 in employment) can implement mandated vaccination for employees, employers need to keep in mind how they require vaccination and testing may impact proper pay for non-exempt employees.

Last month, the Supreme Court declined to take up the issue of whether the nation's schools must allow students to use the bathroom that matches their gender identities.  In that case, a 4th Circuit Court of Appeals decision, the court ruled in favor of Gavin Grimm, a transgender man who sued his Virginia high school for barring him from using the boys’ restroom.  Grimm stated that “[b]eing forced to use the nurse’s room, a private bathroom, and the girl’s...

In addition to providing an employee valuable information about the company, its rules, benefits, and general practices, employee handbooks include a myriad of important legal compliance statements.  These statements are intended as not only employee notices that may or may not be required by law, but to set up employer affirmative defenses in the event of a wrongful employment action. These policies will generally not keep you out of court but do set up an argument that the company...

A new report from Arizent, The Future of Work: Employers, Employees, and the Long Road to Compromise, reveals that employers and employees don’t agree on what the new normal looks like.  To move forward, each side will have to compromise.

As ASE has written about previously, a vaccine mandate is allowed under law, except in jurisdictions which do not allow it, e.g. Montana. In addition, vaccine mandates in a union environment is still under question as to whether it has to be negotiated.  But employers are not flocking to this mandate.  In a recent ASE survey of 143 Michigan organizations, a majority of those surveyed (74.1%) continue to encourage vaccinations, but not mandate them.  Yet, the Delta variant...

Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) systems are probably not used as much these days as they should be by employers. That said, a Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals decision handed down this month demonstrates how a poorly thought-out ADR system did not help the employer as it should have.

The CDC's updated guidance suggesting facial coverings be worn in "public indoor settings" adds a new but hopefully surmountable barrier to returning the workforce to the office. The latest guidance has frustrated some employers who are attempting to develop sensible policies to return their workforce to offices.

ASE continues to get member inquiries about substance abuse testing and policies. A recent article by the Washington Examiner says interest in relaxing strict employer policies against employee marijuana use is going on across the country.  Where marijuana is legal recreationally, such as in Michigan, employers are asking whether it’s worth continuing pre-employment and other testing for marijuana use. Amazon has eliminated marijuana from its drug testing and is treating marijuana...

As the COVID-19 pandemic enters a new phase and employees return to the workplace, some employers may need to face controversial issues regarding vaccinated and unvaccinated employees. Below are some considerations, provided by Ogletree Deakins, for employers as they take steps to prevent or resolve workplace disagreements regarding vaccines and other workplace safety measures to help employees focus on work.

A “No Show, No Call” policy states simply if an employee is absent from work and does not call within a certain period of time the company will consider this abandonment of a job and a voluntary quit. In Michigan, our unemployment compensation law considers not calling and not showing up for work for three days a disqualification for unemployment benefits when a “No Show, No Call” policy is in place.

ASE recently published the results to its biennial Policies and Benefits Survey. Survey results are broken into nine major categories and are based on three employer sizes in both the National and Michigan (a subset of the national report) editions. Over 125 Michigan employers participated in the 2021/2022 edition, and 332 questions were answered regarding human resource policies and employee benefit offerings.

Every couple of years (or less) a lawsuit ruling is published that reminds and confirms the importance of employer policies and handbooks for protecting the employer. A recent example is the case handed down by Michigan’s Court of Appeals (6/24/2021) about an employee of Emmett Charter Township that over the years had been both an employee and an independent contractor for the Township.

Only approximately half of the U.S. working age, vaccine-eligible population has now been vaccinated, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) tracking data. New CDC guidelines allow the fully vaccinated to unmask, except were applicable law or private businesses and workplaces say otherwise.  And the new Michigan rules now allow everyone to unmask, with the exception of healthcare workers.

As we begin to pass by the pandemic and bring back workers to the physical workplace, a host of issues has to be reviewed by HR with the new workplace.  In some cases, employers are having a hybrid approach to working.  In other cases, employers are allowing for 100% remote work.  Finally, other employers are requiring 100% return to the office.  And in today’s world, if the job can be remote, recruitment could be expanded outside the normal recruiting area, possibly...

Even though 56% of Michigan voters approved the recreational use of marijuana on November 6, 2018, and it became legal on December 6, 2018, it seems that it is only recently that more and more employers are rethinking their drug screening policies. This is in large part due to the problem of finding employees, and especially in finding employees who will not test positive for the substance.