Skip to main content

What I’ve Been Reading This Week


With the upcoming elections in November, I suspect we will start to see a wide range of developments on the labor & employment law front, both at the national and local levels.  It only follows that with candidates and incumbents on the ballot, their positions on minimum wage, labor rights, employment discrimination, etc. will become focal points for many voters.  While Wednesday’s announcement of California Senator Kamala Harris being selected as the Vice-Presidential nominee for the Democrats does not necessarily warrant much of a discussion at this point for the purpose of this blog, Joe Biden’s position on a relevant piece of minimum wage legislation is worth kicking things off this week.

As always, below are a couple articles that caught my eye this week.


A Closer Look at Joe Biden’s Support of the Transformation to Competitive Employment Act 

Sarah Katz at The Atlantic wrote an article recently and noted that the Democratic nominee for President, Joe Biden, has made his support of the Transformation to Competitive Employment Act a much talked about topic as of late.  For those wondering, the Americans with Disabilities Act (“ADA”) prohibits employers from discriminating against workers with a disability.  However, the ADA has a loophole that allows employers that hold a special certificate to pay disabled workers less than the federal minimum wage rate.  As a result, if it can be shown that a disabled workers only produces 1 widget an hour (compared to other employees that produce 10 widgets an hour), the employer could lawfully pay the disabled worker $.725/hour while other workers earn $7.50/hour.  As the article notes, should Joe Biden become President and if Democrats can gain majority control of both the House and Senate, this legislation which seeks to do away with this pay disparity could make the ADA loophole a thing of the past.  It will be interesting to see what comes of this legislation after November’s elections.


EEOC Provides Guidance on Employers Dealing With Opioid Accommodations

Last week, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (“EEOC”) issued guidance in regard to employers accommodating employees that “are using opioids, are addicted to opioids, or were addicted to opioids in the past” and are not currently using the drugs illegally.  As the EEOC stated in its guidance, the Americans with Disabilities Act may require employers to accommodate these employees.  I refer readers to the EEOC’s guidance for a more thorough review of the topic.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

NLRB: Discussion Among Employees About Tip Pooling is Protected Concerted Activity

  This Advice Memorandum from the National Labor Relations Board’s Associate General Counsel, Jayme Sophir, addressed whether employees which discussed and complained about tip pooling at work constituted protected concerted activity. In relevant part, an employer in New York operated a chain of steakhouses.  While tip pooling was in place at these steakhouses, some of the employees objected to it on the grounds that it was not transparent and improperly divided tips among the workers.  Employees were told not to complain or talk to each other about the tip pool and were told that doing so would endanger their jobs.  Despite the employer later attempting to provide some clarity as to how the tips were being divided, rancor still existed among some employees.  At one point, the employees were told by a general manager that some employees that had been talking about the tip pool were “cleared out” and the employer would continue to do so. In the Advice Memorandum,...
Post a Comment
Read more

Utah Non-Compete Bill Falters in House

Last month, a non-compete bill sponsored by Representative Brian Greene (Republican from Pleasant Grove) & up for vote in the Utah House failed to make it through the Legislature.  The bill sought to ban enforcement of non-competes if they came after a worker was already employed, given no compensation (such as a bonus or promotion) for signing the non-compete, and laid off within six months.  However, by a 22 - 49 vote, the bill was resoundingly defeated after some business groups lobbied to kill the non-compete bill.  One group in particular, The Free Enterprise Utah coalition, argued that the Utah State Legislature should hold off on any changes to non compete laws in the state until a survey about non competes was done among Utah businesses.  Representative Greene had countered this claim and argued that a survey was not needed to show that the current non compete laws in the states allowed many businesses, including some small high tech companies i...
Post a Comment
Read more

What I've Been Reading This Week

Recently, Equal Employment Opportunity Commission Commissioner, Chai Feldblum, had her re-nomination on the brink, after Utah Republican Senator Mike Lee took steps to block it .  Readers might have heard that late last week, Commissioner Feldblum's re-nomination quietly slipped away and she tweeted out a thank you to supporters and friends, acknowledging that her time at the EEOC was over.  While there has not been much in the way of a further update in regard to that ongoing saga, we wait to see how things will play out at the EEOC, now that it has lost a quorum until additional Commissioners are confirmed by the Senate. For the time being, there are other developments for readers to review this week.  In particular, I call attention to the article on managing a wage & hour audit by the Department of Labor as well as steps an employer can take to better ensure compliance with the ADA. As always, below are a couple articles that caught my eye this week. ...
Post a Comment
Read more