2021 Legislative Updates: New HR and Compliance Laws and Alerts*

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MP: Good afternoon, and thank you for joining us today for 2021 legislative updates HR compliance laws and alerts.

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MP: For those of you joining us for the webinar for the first time and P, is a full service human capital management company offering a suite of products and services, including HR payroll benefits administration time and attendance and compliance.

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MP: We support clients with cutting edge technical solutions, as well as proactive reliable service and deep HR and payroll expertise.

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MP: MP is wired for HR and helps clients succeed by aligning their HR strategy with their business goals, I made me Lehman head of marketing here at MP and i’m thrilled to introduce your presenter today.

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MP: Paul Cornelis he’s our VP of client and HR services, Paul has over a decade of experience in HR consulting working with businesses of all sizes and.

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MP: Industries Paul and his team have certified HR professional professionals at MP assist clients with compliance training and full circle HR guidance and support.

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MP: And just before we begin the program if you’d like to submit a question during the program please use the Q amp a feature at the bottom of the screen.

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MP: And also will be sending out a recording of the webinar later today via email, along with the slide presentation and with that i’ll turn the MIC over to Paul.

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MP: Are you making you did.

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Paul Carelis: Thank you very much thank you amy, thank you for that, thank you for the introduction welcome everyone to today’s session, this is a favorite of mine to do we do these twice a year once around January, and once around this time of year.

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Paul Carelis: And when we’re setting out our webinar schedule, we try to plan in advance pretty well and really try to predict what what will be relevant.

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Paul Carelis: And when we were planning, this one, it was probably a few months ago when we were still under a lot of covert restrictions.

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Paul Carelis: Ports were shut down agencies were were mostly shut down, so I was honestly pretty skeptical with what we’d be able to talk about in today’s session.

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Paul Carelis: But things have aren’t back to normal, by any means and we’ll see what happens with the delta variant and you know if there are any more restrictions that go into play, but.

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Paul Carelis: Needless to say, the courts, the federal and state agencies and federal and state legislators have kind of picked up where they left off pre pandemics, so we do have plenty to discuss here.

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Paul Carelis: Just a quick legal disclaimer this training is for educational informational purposes, coming from an HR best practices standpoint.

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Paul Carelis: Fortunately we’re not attorneys please don’t construe anything today as legal advice.

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Paul Carelis: Everything we talked about today, as long as my fact checking has been accurate should be current as of today, July 22 2021.

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Paul Carelis: Also, another little disclaimer I like to give here on this topic in particular will be talking about legislation will be maybe make some predictions or guesses in terms of how legislation.

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Paul Carelis: might go one way or the other.

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Paul Carelis: But we we try to stay on bias and not provide any any political color to it, even though we are talking about politics and law making process.

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Paul Carelis: So, in terms of what we hope to cover today we’ll do a general legislative overview kind of a temperature check let you know what the landscape looks like.

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Paul Carelis: As well as some major legislation being tossed around and that, in the House and Senate.

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Paul Carelis: will talk about some recent supreme court rulings that have an impact on employment, as well as what’s up at the couple of the federal agencies and national Labor relations board as well as the Department of Labor.

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Paul Carelis: I will do a quick update on on stimulus programs and where those currently stand.

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Paul Carelis: we’ll talk about state laws so we’ll talk about some specific states and new laws that are going into effect this month and those places.

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Paul Carelis: And even if you don’t have employees in those States it’s always a good idea to stay tuned to that kind of stuff because often what will happen is.

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Paul Carelis: A few states will sign on to something it’ll start a trend and before you know it, the majority of States will have something similar so it’s just a good idea to have an idea of what the State Law trends are.

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Paul Carelis: And then we’ll we’ll get these in our crystal ball, a little bit see what what’s ahead for the rest of this year.

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Paul Carelis: What we’re seeing a lot of litigation on and then kind of make some some predictions in terms of what laws or rules, we might expect to see and in the year ahead.

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Paul Carelis: And, as always we’ll leave time for any questions you may have so feel free to jump on that Q amp a portion of zoom and we’ll get to to those that we can, at the end.

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Paul Carelis: Alright, so in terms of the legislative overview there’s one really big piece of legislation passed the House earlier this year it’s now in the Senate.

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Paul Carelis: going through committee and debate all that fun stuff and.

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Paul Carelis: Just so you know we’ll talk about everything that’s in the current version of the bill, but I think it’s pretty universally agreed on that it’s very unlikely that the bill, as it stands right now would be passed, as is.

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Paul Carelis: And people have different thoughts in terms of what what pieces of this are likely to pass, either through through the pro act or through other other separate legislation we’ll talk about that in a second but, but this is this is what’s currently being debated.

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Paul Carelis: So.

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Paul Carelis: The proactive.

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Paul Carelis: Is is a big one it’s all about Labor.

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Paul Carelis: protecting workers rights, so what it includes first of all, is.

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Paul Carelis: challenge, a challenge to right to work, states so when right to work, states what that means is even in a Unionized environment and employee can opt out of Union dues.

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Paul Carelis: The proactively, it would change that it would require anyone who is a member of a Labor Union to to participate in terms of dues payment.

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Paul Carelis: He would also provide workers who are on strikes and protections it would protect them from being permanently replaced by their employer.

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Paul Carelis: Well, this proactive and got a ton of coverage, one of the one of the more notarized pieces is the what’s called the ABC test, so you may have heard of this in California, the Assembly bill that that uber and lyft had a huge ballot initiative to.

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Paul Carelis: compete against, but what the ABC test is really a test that you to determine when somebody is an independent contractor and when they’re an employee so we’ll talk about what the ABC test is on the next slide but just take note of that that is a big piece of this bill.

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Paul Carelis: The proactive, as currently written with also change the definition of supervisor, so what a lot of this back is is to open up opportunity for employees to be organized and to be part of a Union.

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Paul Carelis: And in those scenarios management supervisors are typically excluded from from Union membership.

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Paul Carelis: This bill would change the definition of supervisor so that more people that are currently considered supervisors and currently not included as Unionized workforce would not be part of the Union as well.

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Paul Carelis: This bill would also loosen the joint employer rules so.

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Paul Carelis: To state that employers who have direct or indirect control over a worker could potentially be a joint employer this comes into play and in temporary work scenarios work assignments.

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Paul Carelis: Things like that franchise situations where.

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Paul Carelis: The temp agency might be sending someone to go work at a warehouse for another company, it might be a corporation, who has franchisees and how the other franchise treats their employees or what wage and hour laws they’re observing.

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Paul Carelis: When there’s a joint employer scenario, both parties share some responsibility and potentially liability there so.

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Paul Carelis: should join them clear rules be loosened.

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Paul Carelis: And you know and let’s say a staffing agency send someone to work at a warehouse if that warehouses not following Labor Labor laws of some sort, then the staffing agency could partly be held liable as well.

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Paul Carelis: there’s also a lot in there about the election rules for companies, attempting to unionize it would reintroduce quickie elections which can result in as quick as an eight eight day turnaround time from.

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Paul Carelis: When the process has started to win the election takes place.

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Paul Carelis: They would also allow employees to use company email for purposes of.

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Paul Carelis: Collective bargaining and unionization.

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Paul Carelis: And it would ban companies employers from holding what what are known as captive audience meetings.

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Paul Carelis: A captive audience meetings are when a company so there’s a mandatory meeting that everyone needs to attend these typically take place.

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Paul Carelis: During the process of have a company considering becoming Unionized and it’ll give the employer, the opportunity to speak to.

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Paul Carelis: The employees as a mandatory meeting to try to dissuade them from from unionizing so should that piece of a task captive audience meetings would be would be barred.

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Paul Carelis: Proactive would also.

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Paul Carelis: limit mandatory arbitration so in those cases when an employee feels wrong or grieve.

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Paul Carelis: or terminated for wrong reasons.

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Paul Carelis: Some businesses will have mandatory arbitration clauses that say those disputes have to go to arbitration rather than the courts or agencies, this would bar that.

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Paul Carelis: It would also create required postings for.

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Paul Carelis: An employee Section seven rights.

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Paul Carelis: So that has to do with national Labor Relations Act, but those come into play a lot in terms of.

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Paul Carelis: Employees rights to discuss the conditions of their employment their their rights to organize all that kind of stuff.

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Paul Carelis: So it would just be kind of a new workplace post there.

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Paul Carelis: And then, finally, the pro Act does introduce some some punitive damages and civil penalties to employers when they violate Labor rules so under the national Labor Relations Act and the national Labor relations board who governs it usually, when when damages or fines or doled out from.

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Paul Carelis: Any legal employment action in terms of the national Labor Relations Act.

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Paul Carelis: The damages are usually minimal there just to bring things up to code and get them compliance, this would this would change the game quite a bit and really introduced some big money penalties for employers who violate employees rights under the national Labor Relations Act.

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Paul Carelis: This piece in particular has a very good chance of passing there’s a lot of talk right now of moving it out of the pro X.

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Paul Carelis: And, including it in the budget bill that’s going through reconciliation, right now, so the the budget reconciliation bill is looking very likely to pass and there’s again a lot of talk in Washington, right now, of adding in the.

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Paul Carelis: Monetary penalties for Labor violations to that so more to come there.

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Paul Carelis: So just to review the ABC test and a little bit more detail.

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Paul Carelis: The ABC test is a three prong test and in in states or jurisdictions where it is in effect.

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Paul Carelis: A worker.

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Paul Carelis: would have to meet all three of these criteria to be considered an independent contractor if if the worker does not meet all three of these, then they would be considered an employee.

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Paul Carelis: So the first prong is the worker is free from the control and direction of the hiring entity and connection with with the works performance, both under the.

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Paul Carelis: contract for the performance of the work and, in fact, so this really has to do with that whole control definition is pretty standard when it comes to the fighting employee versus independent contractor, you know how much.

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Paul Carelis: How much direction is the worker given in terms of how the work is performed when where what have you.

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Paul Carelis: The second prong is that and, and this is a really important one, and this is what this qualifies.

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Paul Carelis: Workers from being considered independent contractors in many situations, the work being performed is outside the company’s usual course of business, so that was the the big argument with with uber and lyft is that.

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Paul Carelis: You know the debate was is uber and lyft a a ride sharing service and, if so, you know driving as part of that the course of uber and lyft business, they were more related themselves to being you know, a matching service connecting people who want to ride to people who want to drive.

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Paul Carelis: But that’s been quite fraud in the courts.

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Paul Carelis: But this this comes up in a lot of other situations as well freelancers, that are working for any sort of company if it’s if the work they’re doing is related to the company’s main mission, then.

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Paul Carelis: It would run afoul of the ABC test.

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Paul Carelis: And then third the worker is customarily engaged independently establish trade occupation or business of the same nature of the work performed.

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Paul Carelis: So this has a lot to do with economic dependency on on the gig that they’re working so if if they’re a driver and the driver for.

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Paul Carelis: You know other people other than the person that’s paying them and this arrangement that helps but you know if they’re doing work for this company and solely for that company.

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Paul Carelis: And they’re not not doing or not able to do or not allowed to do that same work for other people or other businesses, then that would also jeopardize them as an independent contractor in an ABC test scenario.

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Paul Carelis: So, so these rules are in play, and in California, there are also it’s called a three prong test in Massachusetts but the same test is in place in Massachusetts as well.

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Paul Carelis: But many other states do not follow this but changes either whether it’s through the proactive department of Labor action that that may follow this will change the game for a lot of a lot of businesses and their independent contractors.

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Paul Carelis: For those of you wondering uber and lyft did succeed in their ballot initiative last November, so they did kind of get a car vote, they were exempted from from this and they are allowed to operate as as they were with some exceptions.

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Paul Carelis: Okay now for a quick covert update.

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Paul Carelis: Many of the the stimulus programs that that were passed over the last year and a half or so, our sets at sunset or expire September 30 so the end of this quarter that includes the Cobra subsidy Program.

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Paul Carelis: The American rescue plan code sick leave program as well as the unemployment premium for states that are still in that many states to drop off and stop.

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Paul Carelis: That unemployment incentive they felt that was hurting the unemployment numbers and the ability for businesses to hire employees, but those all formally and, as of now, at the end of September again should.

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Paul Carelis: Should infection rates rise or something like that they could look to extend those but as of right now, those will all be ending.

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Paul Carelis: 930 we get a lot of questions about new rounds a PPP or other grants are fun does it right now, at least at the Washington level there haven’t been any serious talks or bills proposed that would create new stimulus money.

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Paul Carelis: For the business world will keep our eyes peeled for that, and certainly let you know if that changes.

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Paul Carelis: For those of you who are looking for additional revenue streams or or assistance.

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Paul Carelis: In terms of funding if you haven’t already I do encourage you to look at the employee retention tax credit Program.

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Paul Carelis: They did change the rules for that if you’re a fan of our webinar series you’ve undoubtedly.

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Paul Carelis: attended a webinar on this topic, but if not, you can certainly go ahead and look at our our website, we do have a the rtc playbook that’s either just released or soon to be released.

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Paul Carelis: But we are working with businesses on the rtc and a lot of them are realizing some pretty hefty refundable tax credits so worth looking into if you’re searching out new funding options.

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Paul Carelis: We do, we will have a webinar on the 30th of September all about coming out of the pandemic, hopefully, that is still.

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Paul Carelis: The tone by then we’ll see but just talking about in a little bit more detail the ending of these programs and some strategies for kind of how to enter the next chapter of the business world so that’ll be September 30.

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Paul Carelis: Okay.

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Paul Carelis: let’s move on to the Supreme Court and the Federal agencies.

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Paul Carelis: So Supreme Court has been busy over the last few months, and they have had some significant supreme court rulings that to impact best practices and employment law.

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Paul Carelis: The first of which was a victory for agricultural businesses, there was a case involving.

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Paul Carelis: Some Union organizers who were kind of coming out announced to to farms and agricultural work site.

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Paul Carelis: The company challenge that the Supreme Court said it with the company that they aren’t allowed to do that, so there are no restrictions in terms of unionize unionization efforts in agricultural scenarios.

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Paul Carelis: One interesting one, and it’s important to note that this had to do with a school and a student, but a lot of experts are.

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Paul Carelis: Also, saying that this could potentially apply to workplaces as well, so there was a student who was expelled or removed from a team because of some vulgar tech talks that she posted on her own time, you know, in her own home.

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Paul Carelis: Supreme Court found that that was overreach that it violated her her protections for free speech.

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Paul Carelis: So, as you can imagine that does make people wonder and take a look at their social media policies and wonder, you know how much.

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Paul Carelis: pieces now have given the Supreme Court ruling so.

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Paul Carelis: My advice generally to clients is let’s play it safe let’s play let’s play conservatively will let someone else spend the legal fees to be the next President case, but this was an interesting ruling in and could very well apply to workplaces, as well as schools.

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Paul Carelis: And the Supreme Court also continues to hammer home.

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Paul Carelis: religious liberties for religious institutions, so allowing them to kind of make their own rules if they have to do with.

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Paul Carelis: With that religion and the norms of that religion so requiring employees to teach things a certain way, or to be of a certain denomination.

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Paul Carelis: Certainly, there was a lot of media coverage of.

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Paul Carelis: The ability for businesses or religious organizations closely held religious beliefs, to limit or restrict contraceptives from their insurance plans.

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Paul Carelis: Things like that, so the Supreme Court did rule, and this was specifically.

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Paul Carelis: For for a religious agency and Adoption Agency and their restrictions on same sex couples as adoptive parents, the Supreme Court did rule in favor of the religious institution so.

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Paul Carelis: That kind of continues things on on the path of the current court giving more power to religious entities to kind of run run businesses and employment practices as they wish.

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Paul Carelis: There was also a very interesting case.

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Paul Carelis: That covered the computer fraud and abuse act so in the case, it had to do with a police department and a sergeant who had access to a system to run license plates and garner information from those license plates, so what he did was he gained information that he shouldn’t have an authorized.

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Paul Carelis: of people, based on their license plates to kind of do his own little API work or on the request of someone else he he gained personal information about people that didn’t that wasn’t in line with the work that he was doing is as a police sergeant.

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Paul Carelis: And somewhat of a surprising move as a pre court actually ruled in favor of of the employee stating that, when someone has authorization to a to a system that.

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Paul Carelis: Has not necessarily in terms of the language in the computer fraud and abuse act it’s not necessarily an authorized that they are authorized to to view it and it isn’t criminally illegal.

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Paul Carelis: For them to do so if there are otherwise authorized if they access information that might not be intended as part of their work so.

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Paul Carelis: I my interpretation of that and again this isn’t legal advice is that they’re still would be the opportunity for.

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Paul Carelis: Employment action and disciplinary action and determination, but in terms of quick criminal liability that’s where the Supreme Court really drew the line in the sand, with this case.

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Paul Carelis: Okay over at the national Labor relations board a lot of changes over there, so.

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Paul Carelis: For a while now, there had been a vacancy on the board so it’s typically a five member board it had been operating as a four Member board for again quite a while now, so now they did get deadlocked on something.

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Paul Carelis: But that is all changing now.

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Paul Carelis: President Biden has made to two new nominees to the board, so one to fill that vacancy and another to to replace a member of the board, whose turn is up in August.

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Paul Carelis: once that happens in August control of the national Labor relations board as as it does historically will shift to to democratic power it’ll be a three to two majority in favor of the democrats.

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Paul Carelis: President by also did get approval on it nominee for general counsel of the national Labor relations board her name is Jennifer Brazil.

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Paul Carelis: And as we’ve said in previous iterations of this presentation, the that general counsel seat is very, very powerful so that position ultimately decides which cases the board wants to hear, and when you look back historically.

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Paul Carelis: it’ll be a lot of back and forth so.

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Paul Carelis: You know the Obama lead national Labor relations board.

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Paul Carelis: Will to revisit ruling during the George W Bush national Labor relations board and weigh in on those and sometimes reverse the way of thinking.

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Paul Carelis: same thing happened when when President trump came into office they selected certain cases that were closer identical to cases that the Obama and lrb had ruled on and and reverse some decisions and some way of thinking there.

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Paul Carelis: They also released a series of memos to let the country know where they stand on certain issues and how they will rule and how they will judge.

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Paul Carelis: certain situations in relation to the national Labor Relations Act.

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Paul Carelis: So what the current board is done so far is they’ve removed 10 of the trump era memos.

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Paul Carelis: will get in those in the second one important note, for I skipped over it, when President Bush took office, he asked the acting general counsel to resign.

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Paul Carelis: That general counsel refuse so he was terminated, there was a lawsuit around that but I think it was just a week or two ago.

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Paul Carelis: A District Court ruled in favor of President Biden saying that that termination was lawful so he was okay to proceed with his approval for for the new general counsel role.

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Paul Carelis: So some some things to look for, especially in regards to the memos that were rescinded handbooks is a big one, so the national Labor relations board does tend to.

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Paul Carelis: Like to review handbooks and handbook policies to see if there’s anything in there that could be a violation of an employee’s rights or chilling to their rights under Section seven.

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Paul Carelis: In terms of their rights to organize their rights to discuss and have considered protected activity discussing the conditions of their employment and things like that so.

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Paul Carelis: There was a memo during the previous administration and lrb that kind of said hey we’re going to when we review handbooks we’re going to go into them thinking that.

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Paul Carelis: The businesses is doing those doing these in good faith and they’ll need to it’ll really need to ship prove that a policy is.

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Paul Carelis: is strongly chilling of an employee’s rights or a strong violation employees rights before we take action that has been rescinded so that the two to that may change.

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Paul Carelis: National Labor relations board is always intertwined with with Union rules so there’ll be no different there will just be different people examining it.

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Paul Carelis: Another one of the memos that was rescinded had to do a fruit whistleblower protections so the previous memo talked about giving.

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Paul Carelis: Employers the leeway to kind of give a warning to potential whistleblowers that they could be in trouble if.

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Paul Carelis: Any footage or evidence that they are coming forth with with attain illegally that’s being removed so.

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Paul Carelis: There will be stronger whistleblower protections moving forward.

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Paul Carelis: But this is something to keep an eye on there could be a lot of action at the NLRB starting in August.

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Paul Carelis: And the other one so despite the four Member board they did vote last week 321 to allow who you see here scabby there at to remain.

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Paul Carelis: On.

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Paul Carelis: Work site when there’s a strike going on, so there have been a few court cases over the last year or two.

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Paul Carelis: To fight having this large inflatable rat present.

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Paul Carelis: When there is a workplace dispute, so the you know rb did again recently ruled that scabby the rap is isn’t allowable presence at work sites in case you were curious.

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Paul Carelis: Over at the Department of Labor.

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Paul Carelis: It looks like Marty Walsh is going to stick it as the Labor Secretary, there was a little bit of controversy in regards to his time when he was the Mayor of Boston and.

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Paul Carelis: Some of the activity at the police department and some some of the personnel there, but it does seem like he he will remain in office as the secretary of Labor.

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Paul Carelis: President Biden did just within the last couple of weeks have the Deputy Secretary and the Solicitor So those are kind of second and third in command.

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Paul Carelis: Is nominees for those roles have been confirmed, so we do have kind of a a full compartment at the top within the Department of Labor this usually means that once those spots are filled.

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Paul Carelis: Though they’ll start to be a little bit more productive, efficient and you’ll see more coming from them.

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Paul Carelis: They have released a few proposed rules so department of Labor observes the federal rulemaking process, they propose a rule.

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Paul Carelis: there’s an A comment period for the public to make comment on it, they then come up with the final rule and then it’s published in the Federal Register and becomes the rule of the land.

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Paul Carelis: The most recent proposed rule which came out this month calls for a $15 minimum wage for federal contractors, so that comment period is is going on right now.

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Paul Carelis: there’s another proposed rule that came out, I believe, last month, which would create changes when it comes to TIM to workers.

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Paul Carelis: And, specifically when an employer can pay the tips minimum wage and when they’re prohibited from doing so.

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Paul Carelis: So there’s been a lot of back and forth on this federally and again Similarly, this has bounced from administration to administration and the rules have changed depending on who and what party is in power.

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Paul Carelis: it’s not new but it’s being reintroduced as far as proposed rule you’ll see here the 8020 rule.

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Paul Carelis: And what that means is that.

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Paul Carelis: kept employees, please you know waitstaff and restaurants things of that nature can generally be PT tips minimum wage, which is lower than the stated minimum wage, provided that the tips that they receive make up for that difference.

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Paul Carelis: For any of you who have worked in the industry or in another tip role, you know that not 100% of your time is spent doing kind of tend to work waiting tables you’re doing prep work, you might be.

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Paul Carelis: rolling up silverware.

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Paul Carelis: If you’re a bartender you might be doing some inventory things like that, but the 8020 rule says that if more than 20% of your time is being spent on these non.

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Paul Carelis: Non tasks, or more than 30 consecutive minutes of being spent on these tasks, then that time must be compensated at least the before minimum wage and that.

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Paul Carelis: Employers cannot pay the minimum wage for that time if it’s if it’s go going over that 20%.

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Paul Carelis: So again, this is in the in that proposal stage open for public comment.

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Paul Carelis: And then they’ll get to work on the final rule.

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Paul Carelis: do note here many States have their own rules in terms of tips minimum wage tipped over time things like that, so one if and when it does become a formal final official rule.

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Paul Carelis: Whichever version state or federal is more friendly to the employees, what will take precedence wherever you’re doing business.

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Paul Carelis: President by also did announced in his fiscal fiscal year 2022 budget a large increase in in budget, especially for OSHA which is technically a part of department of Labor so increasing the budget of OSHA by $70 million most of that year mark towards.

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Paul Carelis: Building up the staff there, there are currently 188 employees of.

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Paul Carelis: The federal OSHA department.

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Paul Carelis: Secretary Walsh is looking to get that as high as 639 employees.

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Paul Carelis: Part of that will be do will will go towards assisting businesses they’ve got a really nice program if you’ve ever wondered, I wanted to look into it to.

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Paul Carelis: Have OSHA come in.

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Paul Carelis: Not as an auditor and not with a not with the ability to find but to to do kind of a pre examination of that you know if there are potential OSHA violation and give you the chance to remedy those without going through any types of fines and penalties.

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Paul Carelis: But there will certainly be a lot of that staff dedicated to to enforcement and to audits and to the less less likable arm of OSHA.

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Paul Carelis: OSHA has also introduced their agenda for the remainder of this year, over the next six months.

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Paul Carelis: And where they want to focus their their efforts there they’re going to be coming out with some more formal illness prevention procedures and expectations.

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Paul Carelis: So for workers who are exposed to the elements either indoors or out and what the guidelines and requirements for employers are around that.

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Paul Carelis: they’re also looking to do expanded and enhanced injury and illness tracking for workplace injuries so there’ll be more on that to follow.

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Paul Carelis: And then also some regulations regarding personal protective equipment or P P, which we all become familiar with during the pandemic but specific to the construction industry and what employee requirements are in terms of providing PP.

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Paul Carelis: department Labor also did recently released their strategic goals.

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Paul Carelis: That they hope to accomplish over the next four years, so fiscal year 2022 through 2026 and at a high level, these are what they are.

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Paul Carelis: The first is to build opportunity and equity for all the second is to ensure safe jobs essential protections and fair workplaces.

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Paul Carelis: Goal Three is to improve the administration of and strengthen worker safety net programs.

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Paul Carelis: goal for is to be better at measuring statistics and data.

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Paul Carelis: And then overall management of the department.

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Paul Carelis: To be grounded in evidence, innovation and employee engagement, they did release a PDF file that’s kind of a funky looking pictogram where they go into a little bit more detail and have some kind of Sub goals within each of these goals.

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Paul Carelis: If I can i’ll include that in in the copy of the slides and the recording that we send out later today, just in case anyone’s curious about where the Department of labor’s head is that and where they may look to to create new rules.

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Paul Carelis: Right let’s take a look at the state what’s going on over there.

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Paul Carelis: So as many say July, one is the new January one, there are several states and several regulations that did take effect this month, this is a review of some of the most significant.

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Paul Carelis: Virginia and Pennsylvania have passed living donor leave law so basically if someone is an organ donor they’re given job protected leave to take care of that.

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Paul Carelis: They have been decriminalization and legalization of marijuana laws that take effect this month in Connecticut and in new Mexico.

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Paul Carelis: there’s a lot going on in terms of pregnancy and childbirth protections whether that’s a requirement for employers to provide reasonable accommodation.

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Paul Carelis: or a protected leave in cases of pregnancy and childbirth, the state that we’re active on that taking effect this summer, are Arizona Kentucky Georgia and indiana.

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Paul Carelis: And then several States have also created new protected class groups.

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Paul Carelis: So in Colorado gender identity and gender expression during the lucid list of protected classes there.

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Paul Carelis: Arizona has adopted pregnancy and childbirth as a presented class.

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Paul Carelis: Virginia has added military membership for being a military spouse as a protected class.

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Paul Carelis: and new Mexico has expanded their race, participate class to include air meaning hair length hair styles.

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Paul Carelis: And hair texture as potential for a protected class under race.

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Paul Carelis: And what this means are we talking about protected classes, is when someone can be when someone or something can be the basis of discrimination, harassment.

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Paul Carelis: So if you attended a previous educational session from us, you know that in order for something to be considered legally discriminatory or legal harassment.

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Paul Carelis: Among the the qualifiers is that has to be based on a protected class so now people who fall into these protected classes could potentially have a a case of discrimination, harassment.

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Paul Carelis: And then also do camps are included as part of their budget that was passed by governor sununu and optional kind of paid family medical leave program, so this is going to be optional for employers to either opt in or not.

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Paul Carelis: The state and their employees are going to be mandatory participants they’re going to serve as the risk pool.

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Paul Carelis: But there’ll be more information on this to follow up short but, if you are new Hampshire employer something to look out for, and if you are looking to offer this, they will be an option to you.

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Paul Carelis: Okay, so oftentimes i’m asked it to gaze into my crystal ball and and predict what the next several months or a year ahead might look like in terms of employment law and litigation so let’s go ahead and do so.

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Paul Carelis: So, in terms of litigation trends and what we’re seeing when we we take a look at employment law action that that’s hitting the courts.

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Paul Carelis: These these are what i’m kind of seeing as the most common case topics first of which is cool good employees feeling that their employer put them at risk in some way, by not taking proper safety, safety measures to to protect the workplace.

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Paul Carelis: we’re also seeing a lot around wage and hour.

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Paul Carelis: A lot regarding overtime so both litigation and and department of Labor action, there was a pizza restaurant at to location pizza restaurant.

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Paul Carelis: up in new Hampshire who just got had had to pay $140,000 to delivery drivers and they were paying overtime, they just weren’t paying in at the right rate.

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Paul Carelis: So it’s important to note that overtime calculations have to be made at their regular rate which which counts most if not all, compensation received not just their their standard.

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Paul Carelis: driver wage or or tipped rate.

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Paul Carelis: So it’s important that.

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Paul Carelis: When you do have tipped over time or other unique overtime situations that you make sure you’re calculating overtime correctly because, again, both the Department of Labor via their actions, as well as employment lawsuits that we’re seeing.

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Paul Carelis: Do pick apart over time and how it’s handled.

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Paul Carelis: Also, a lot with misclassification, whether it be a worker, saying that they were paid as an independent contractor when they should have been paid as an employee also employees who are paid as an exempt salary workers and feel they should have been entitled to overtime.

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Paul Carelis: And this ties in with the next bullet point remote work so as businesses went remote as they had workers performing work from home without any direct physical oversight of what they were doing and what they were doing it.

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Paul Carelis: you’re seeing a lot of cases pop up where an employee who is either non exempt and paid hourly or should have been paid hourly and eligible for overtime was doing.

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Paul Carelis: A lot more work.

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Paul Carelis: You know, working over 40 hours in a week and not being compensated for that overtime so.

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Paul Carelis: i’m going to be mindful of, especially if you’re continuing in a remote work environment as we kind of move on from the pandemic here that.

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Paul Carelis: you’re taking all appropriate measures that you reasonably can, to have an idea of what hours your employees are working, especially if they’re not exempt and making sure that you’re following all wage and hour laws, especially with overtime they’re.

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Paul Carelis: Also, a lot regarding accommodation so things like the Ada and disabled workers and making sure that it’s really important if you perceive or know have an employee that has a disability, that you, you enter was called the interactive process.

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Paul Carelis: Because there’s a lot of court cases going on right now, where where there are claims that employer did not go through the necessary hoops to provide reasonable accommodation to their employees.

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Paul Carelis: So be mindful of that.

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Paul Carelis: And then, then a lot with harassment hostile work environment and where historically a lot of these have been sexual harassment cases.

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Paul Carelis: we’re seeing a lot more regarding other protected classes so harassment hostile work environment cases having to do with race having to do with disability having to do with gender identity.

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Paul Carelis: Things like that so So those are are really the the hot topics right now.

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Paul Carelis: Another thing to be mindful of when it comes to being compliant.

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Paul Carelis: A lot of businesses, received a pass from the states that they work with and where their employees live when it came to taxation.

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Paul Carelis: And what state to tax the employee in most states allowed kind of the status quo, to continue during the pandemic that if I used to work out of an office and.

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Paul Carelis: In.

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Paul Carelis: South Carolina but I live in North Carolina and i’ve been working from home out of my home in North Carolina it was generally okay during the state of emergency and during the pandemic for me to be continue to be treated as a South Carolina employee.

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Paul Carelis: As states of emergency are expiring are being rescinded as things are quote unquote returning to normal.

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Paul Carelis: yeah a lot of businesses have found that remote work is a good option for them their employees may really like it, they may want to appease those employees and allow them to continue to work from home.

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Paul Carelis: But if that work from home is is out of state.

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Paul Carelis: States are now starting to enforce and reminding businesses that now that the pandemic is over these.

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Paul Carelis: You know, there are there aren’t any excuses, I guess, I should say so, if you could do to help employees now working on a state, you probably need to examine that you may have to register for at the very least payroll taxes in those States.

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Paul Carelis: Okay, so some some things to look for, whether it be government agency action or new laws at the federal or state level.

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Paul Carelis: definitely expect some action on independent contractors, so if the pro act kind of dies out if that doesn’t end up being tasked do look for the Department of Labor to tackle that issue, it might not be until next year, but.

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Paul Carelis: It does seem like the.

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Paul Carelis: The current administration is interested in trying to move towards that ABC tests across the country, so they will likely be some movement there.

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Paul Carelis: More and more states are moving towards legalizing marijuana.

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Paul Carelis: There is even talk at the federal level of legalizing it across the country.

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Paul Carelis: So you want to make sure that your your policies are clear when it comes to marijuana usage if it if it is legal in the state that you’re operating in or other states where you do business.

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Paul Carelis: Especially as a controlled substance will see you in federal legislation does pass what rights that gives to employers to to mandate that.

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Paul Carelis: But, at the very least you even if if the rules are like it might be something that you treat has alcohol so you’re just want to make sure that your employment policies address marijuana in the workplace, if it is legal in your jurisdictions.

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Paul Carelis: Another interesting one, is there was a recent court ruling I forget what state, it was it was either Idaho or iowa, but they did theme CBD oil as a controlled substance.

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Paul Carelis: So if that’s something you care about and again wish to address and and want to limit usage of CBD in your workplace that’s also something you want to specifically address in your policies.

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Paul Carelis: Given that the Secretary of the Department of Labor as well as other people in the administration have a Union background, there is going to be a lot more focus on utilization and collective bargaining rights.

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Paul Carelis: also expect to see new laws and focus on pay equity both you know gender gender equity when it comes to pay practices, as well as other protected classes.

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Paul Carelis: More and more states are are taking action in terms of the ability for businesses in terms of covert restrictions or looking ahead, other future pandemic restrictions and.

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Paul Carelis: Vaccination rules and vaccination mandates the eeoc, which is a company we didn’t have an update on this time, but they did recently state that employers may have mandatory vaccination policies that.

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Paul Carelis: Provided they provide accommodations for those who need it, either for religious or medical exemption that they can otherwise proceed with mandatory vaccination policies.

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Paul Carelis: And then, more and more States look to limit the power and the jurisdiction of non compete agreements so that’s something that’s kind of evergreen on here, but more States continue to talk about pass legislation restricting or eliminating non compete agreements.

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Paul Carelis: And I know, especially in the small to mid sized business community those those are common so make sure if you do have a non compete agreement that it is valid in the state you’re operating in.

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Paul Carelis: In terms of questions, it looks like we’ve got a couple one regarding overtime for protective please so that varies a lot by state.

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Paul Carelis: Here in Massachusetts they have one of the more unique tipped over time rules which changed a few years ago.

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Paul Carelis: But it all has to do with the tips and the tip credit that employers allowed to take.

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Paul Carelis: One other thing I can include For those of you, it does look like we do have several people in the hospitality industry and.

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Paul Carelis: As well as some Massachusetts based or at least with locations in Massachusetts where the where the Massachusetts.

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Paul Carelis: Get overtime law is so unique.

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Paul Carelis: I can include in the communication we send out there today with the recording with the slides the messages restaurant association has a really nice kind of breakdown of.

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Paul Carelis: The minimum wage, what the tip minimum wages and then what the tip minimum overtime, for it is so i’ll be sure to include that for people who are a local here to Massachusetts that could benefit from that.

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Paul Carelis: But in terms of other states that it really depends on what the minimum wages in that state and what what they allow for a tip credit and then how the overtime works there, but if you do have questions if you are in other states and want to know about tipped over time.

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Paul Carelis: feel free to reach out to us and we can help out with that.

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Paul Carelis: Okay, then we have a question here about.

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Paul Carelis: termination and return of equipment.

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Paul Carelis: So, so when it comes to that.

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Paul Carelis: You know whether, and the question here is whether it’s okay to verbally communicate that or if it should be in writing.

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Paul Carelis: Most days do allow for termination to be completely variable without a termination letter and they can similarly.

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Paul Carelis: verbally request the return of equipment, hopefully they’re keeping track of their company assets, so those of you who are current MP clients and us.

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Paul Carelis: I saw there is a the ability to track company assets, down to the serial number within the system by each employee, which is something I always recommend to clients they utilize.

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Paul Carelis: But, depending on what state it is there are a handful of states that do require written termination letters and do require a reason for the termination and as well as any terms, including requirements to return equipment, but.

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Paul Carelis: In terms of being compliant.

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Paul Carelis: Again, in most States doing it verbally as Okay, it is always the best practice and we do always highly encourage employers to document things like that.

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Paul Carelis: It looks like we do have one other question about.

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Paul Carelis: The new Hampshire.

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Paul Carelis: Paid family medical leave and if there’s a wait period we’re just getting our hands on that it was just included in the budget so we will have a lot of.

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Paul Carelis: content on that coming out once once the guidelines are a little bit more clearly defined, but unfortunately I don’t know the ins and outs of that that new program just yet.

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Paul Carelis: So it looks like those are the questions we have.

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Paul Carelis: Thank you very much, I will hand things back over to amy to close us out.

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MP: Thank you, Paul, that was an abundance of information.

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MP: And thank you all again for attending this webinar we hope you came away with some helpful information on the latest HR legislative updates, I want to quickly remind everyone with a link to the recording and the presentation will be sent out an email later this afternoon.

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MP: Please join us next week, we have.

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MP: Two really great webinars on the schedule on Tuesday, Paul will be back again with the latest on employee retention tax credits, how to determine if your business is eligible and how to maximize your.

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MP: credits and then on Thursday we have sherry Heller another one of our MP HR experts covering.

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MP: Mass PF ml, with a focus on avoiding discrimination and retaliation penalties for complete schedule of all our upcoming webinars visit our website on the resources page thanks again for joining us today and have a terrific rest of your day.