The first six months of 2019 have proven to be busy, challenging professionals in the labor and employment communities to keep up with a number of newly enacted laws and regulations. In the 2019: Mid-Year Outlook for Employers, Jackson Lewis attorneys provide a snapshot of activity from the first half of the year as well as a preview of what may lie ahead for employers in the U.S. and abroad.
Highlights include:
The U.S. Supreme Court term that ended in June 2019 included decisions on many topics important to workplace law, including class actions, arbitration, and administrative exhaustion and Title VII claims.
Workers on oil drilling platforms off the coast of California are covered by the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), not California’s overtime and wage laws, the U.S. Supreme Court has held unanimously. Parker Drilling Management Services, Ltd. v. Newton, No. 18-389 (June 10, 2019). Accordingly, the Court ruled that workers are not entitled to be paid for the nonworking time they spend on the platform, including for sleeping.
On May 1, the EEOC announced plans to collect pay data for both calendar year 2017 and calendar year 2018 by September 30, 2019. A copy of the announcement scheduled to be published in the Federal Register on May 3 is available here.
Given this development, a government appeal seems unlikely, but we will continue to monitor and will update in the event of an appeal.
Class action arbitration is such a departure from ordinary, bilateral arbitration of individual disputes that courts may compel class action arbitration only where the parties expressly declare their intention to be bound by such actions in their arbitration agreement, the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled in a 5-4 decision. Lamps Plus, Inc. v. Varela, No. 17-988 (Apr. 24, 2019).
Whether LGTBQ employees are protected from employment discrimination by Title VII of the Civil Rights Act will be decided by the U.S. Supreme Court next term.
The Court has agreed to hear three cases to determine:
September 30, 2019, is the earliest the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) could collect pay data from employers in the EEO-1 report, the agency advised the federal district court in the District of Columbia on April 3, 2019. National Women’s Law Center et al. v. Office of Management and Budget et al., No. 17-2458.
The EEOC also stated its intention to adjust the collection deadline for 2018 pay data (Component 2) through that date. The deadline to submit race, ethnicity, and gender data (Component 1) remains May 31, 2019.
This is the final article in our four-part series titled “Rethinking Pay Equity,” designed to provide practical guidance to help employers understand and address the many new rules, regulations, and best practices around pay equity in preparation for Equal Pay Day 2019. This article focuses on the increasing pressures on employers to publicly address pay equity and the issues to be considered in deciding whether to go public about pay.
This is the third article in our four-part series titled “Rethinking Pay Equity,” designed to provide practical guidance to help employers understand and address the many new rules, regulations, and best practices around pay equity in preparation for Equal Pay Day 2019. This article focuses on some of the most common causes of pay differences and how successful the common explanations for the differences are likely to be in the new equal pay landscape.
This is the second article in our four-part series titled “Rethinking Pay Equity,” designed to provide practical guidance to help employers understand and address the many new rules, regulations, and best practices around pay equity in preparation for Equal Pay Day 2019. This article focuses on identifying “who” will be compared for purposes of pay equity under federal and state fair pay laws. The four-part series will culminate in a complimentary webinar on April 2, Equal Pay Day 2019, by the Co-Chairs of the Jackson Lewis Pay Equity Resource Group, Joy Chin and Stephanie Lewis.