National Labor Relations Board (“NLRB”) issued a decision in McLaren Macomb (“McLaren”), holding that the mere offer of a severance agreement with broad confidentiality and non-disparagement provisions violated the National Labor Relations Act.
On March 3, 2023, the California Department of Public Health (“CDPH”) issued a state public health officer order (“Order”) regarding COVID-19. The Order, which took effect yesterday on March 13, 2023, includes important information for employers doing business in California.
The National Labor Relations Board (“NLRB”) issued a decision in McLaren Macomb (“McLaren”), returning to a longstanding precedent holding that employers may not offer employees severance agreements with certain confidentiality and non-disparagement clauses that require employees to broadly waive their Section 7 rights under the National Labor Relations Act (“the Act”).
Last Wednesday, February 22, 2023, the US Supreme Court issued its opinion in Helix Energy Solutions Group, Inc. v. Hewitt, holding that paying an employee a day rate does not satisfy the salary basis test under the white-collar exemptions in section 13(a)(1) of the Fair Labor Standards Act.
Wage and Hour Division of the US Department of Labor (“DOL”) issued Field Assistance Bulletin No. 2023-1 to provide guidance on the application of the Fair Labor Standards Act and Family and Medical Leave Act to employees who telework (i.e., work remotely from an offsite location away from the employer’s official workplace).
Yesterday, February 15, 2023, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals struck down a California law, AB 51, that prohibited employers from requiring employees to sign an arbitration agreement as a condition of employment or continued employment. The Court ruled that a federal law—known as the Federal Arbitration Act (“FAA”) —preempts AB 51 because AB 51 “stands as an obstacle” to Congress’s “policy of encouraging arbitration.”
The US Supreme Court is set to consider whether its own definition of “undue hardship” with respect to religious accommodation requests remains valid when it hears the oral argument in Groff v. DeJoy (“Groff”). When analyzing undue hardship, the Court will also consider whether an accommodation that burdens other employees can be said to burden the employer.
On January 19, 2023, the US Department of Homeland Security reached a settlement in Edakunni v. Mayorkas. The settlement brings in policy changes to the way in which US Citizenship and Immigration Services (“USCIS”) adjudicates extension of status, change of status, and employment authorization applications filed by spouses and children of L-1 and H-1B non-immigrant visa holders, along with the petition filed on behalf of the principal applicant so long as they are concurrently and properly filed.
On January 20, 2023, San Francisco’s mayor London Breed approved a city ordinance that will require private employers with 100 or more employees to supplement the pay of covered employees during a qualifying military leave for up to 30 days in a calendar year.
On Friday, January 13, 2023, a Sacramento County Superior Court judge issued a preliminary injunction to prevent the implementation of California’s FAST Recovery Act (the “Act”) (AB 257). The law, which was pending a statewide referendum, would have established a Fast Food Council that would set industry-wide standards for wages, working hours, and other working conditions related to the health and safety of fast food employees. It was set to go into effect at the beginning of this year.
