The #MeToo movement has galvanized many into taking action to fight workplace harassment. Since the movement began in the fall of last year, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC)—tasked with enforcing laws prohibiting sexual harassment—has indicated it has seen an uptick in the amount of traffic to its website ...
On July 18, 2018, Governor Brown signed into law AB 2282, which amends the California Labor Code to clarify aspects of California's salary history and equal pay statutes. Labor Code Section 432.3 As we previously reported, effective January 1, 2018, Labor Code section 432.2 prohibits both public and private employers from asking job applicants for “salary history information ...
This month, courts have been active in several of the fiduciary breach cases involving 403(b) retirement plans at private universities, including USC, Brown, New York University, the University of Pennsylvania, Duke and Northwestern. We have been closely monitoring these and other lawsuits against fiduciaries of defined contribution plans, and the lessons to be gleaned for avoiding liability ...
Yesterday, the California Supreme Court issued an important decision for employers that rejects the application of the federal de minimis defense to unpaid wage claims arising under California law. In Troester v. Starbucks, Case No. S234969 (July 26, 2018), the Supreme Court held that California law prohibits requiring employees to "routinely work for minutes off the clock without compensation ...
Section 198A of the Labour Relations Act, 1995 (the “LRA”) provides that a person assigned to a client by a temporary employment service (“TES”) for a period of more than three months, and who earns less than the threshold amount set in section 6(3) of the Basic Conditions of Employment Act, 1997, is deemed to be the employee of the client for the purposes of the LRA. There are two exceptions to this deeming provision ...
Section 23(1)(d) of the Labour Relations Act, 1995 (“LRA”) enables an employer and a trade union (or trade unions acting jointly), that enjoy majority support in the employer’s workplace, to conclude a collective agreement and to extend the collective agreement to employees who are not members of the trade union that concluded the collective agreement ...
Earlier this year, the government released a proposal paper: Extending Unfair Contract Terms Protections to Insurance Contracts outlining a model to extend unfair contract term (UCT) provisions to insurance contracts regulated under the Insurance Contracts Act 1984 (Cth) (IC Act) for consultation. The consultation period closes on 27 July. A high level summary of the proposed model is below ...
The 10thedition of the Forum (14th– 15thJune, Park Hyatt), titled The Future of Law: Technology and Legal Services in South East Europe: 2018-2028, was held with great interest among over 150 delegates and speakers from 30 countries from five continents including, beside the European countries, Jamaica, USA, Singapore and Australia. Borislav Boyanov, Managing Partner of BOYANOV & Co ...
The beginning of the summer brought amendments to several employment-related laws. The most notable changes are presented below: The Law on the Employment of Foreigners The duration of the labour market test– The labour market test within the work-permit acquisition process (through which the National Employment Service examines whether there are any Serbian citizens suitable for the vacant position), is shortened to 10 days, having previously lasted one month ...
With the recent enactment of Bill 165, An Act to amend the Highway Safety Code and other provisions1, the driving of autonomous vehicles in Quebec is finally regulated, although a number of uncertainties remain. Indeed, the driving of autonomous vehicles of automation level 3, such as Tesla’s model X equipped with an improved guidance system, is now permitted in Quebec ...
The California Fair Employment and Housing Council (FEHC) issued new regulations under California's Fair Employment and Housing Act (FEHA) addressing national origin discrimination. Effective July 1, 2018, the regulations provide a broad definition of "national origin" and apply to applicants and employees, regardless of documentation status. The regulations impact employment practices such as English-only policies, English proficiency requirements, and height and weight requirements ...
The drastic changes in the media landscape made over the past years continue to rock the traditional TV sector. Family TV is being replaced rapidly by content online, on demand and on different mobile devices. The global internet video share by consumers is expected to increase from 64% in 2014 to 80% by 2019 (according to Cisco Visual Networking Index: Forecast and Methodology, 2016–2021) ...
Regional Legal Update on Labor and Employment Law Issues DFDL’s Employment Practice Group is dedicated to advising clients on employment and labor issues and preparing human resources documentation that is compliant with local laws. Our employment team’s in-depth knowledge of the law and practices in the countries where we operate allows us to provide specialized, tailored, and practical advice on issues that arise in employment relationships ...
Recent case law has shown that the South African courts are prepared to hold employers liable for conduct amounting to sexual harassment perpetrated by their employees. The basis for such liability arises from two sources. The first is the common law duty imposed on employers to create and maintain a safe working environment free from the danger of being sexually harassed ...
Recently, there have been a number of interesting judgments of the South African Labour Court regarding cost orders and new approaches have been adopted which signal a change as to how cost orders are approached in the Labour Court. Section 162 of the Labour Relations Act, 1995 (“LRA”) states that the Labour Court has discretion regarding the granting of cost orders, which is not dependent of the nature of the claim brought before the court ...
The Affordable Care Act ("ACA") is alive and well, despite renewed legal challenges and the elimination of the “individual mandate” beginning next year. While the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act reduced the tax penalty for individuals who don’t have health coverage to $0, effective for 2019, employers continue to be subject to penalties for failing to comply with certain ACA rules ...
In a recent judgement the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) concluded that an administrator of a Facebook fan page has independent obligations under European data protection law, and will be considered joint controller with Facebook for some processing activities ...
The Communications Decency Act (CDA)—the law Congress enacted in 1996 and confirmed this past year to shield online publishers from responsibility for the speech of others—gives internet platforms the right to publish the ideas and opinions of third-party users without being held liable for that content or being forced to remove it.[1] In the closely watched case ofHassell v ...
The question of 'employment status', continues to concern many employers working within today's 'gig economy'. The UK Supreme Court recently provided guidance on the correct "label" to be bestowed on 'gig economy' workers. Pimlico Plumbers recently lost an appeal in the UK Courts against a finding that one of its plumbers was a "worker" for the purposes of relevant UK employment legislation – not a self-employed independent contractor ...
Earlier this year, in an effort to clarify what types of employee handbook rules are lawful under the National Labor Relations Act (“NLRA”), the General Counsel of the National Labor Relations Board (“NLRB”) issued new 1Guidance on the topic. Determining which rules are permissible and which may violate the NLRA has troubled both union and non-union employers in recent years due to the Obama-era NLRB’s tendency to find that standard handbook rules (e.g ...
Last year, California employers faced a swell of new city and county labor laws that increased employers’ local minimum wage obligations. Several of these local ordinances included incremental increases that went into effect over time, including many increases that are effective as of July 1, 2018. In addition to meeting the state’s minimum wage requirements ($10.50/hour for employers with 25 or fewer employees, and $11 ...
Walking the tight rope between making strides for women’s rights and being too strident So, the Trump-Kim Summit has successfully concluded in Singapore, with the Leader of the Free World shaking hands with the Supreme Leader of one of its most coldblooded dictatorships. Looking at these two scions of privilege, it is hard not to be struck by how much they have in common, united not just by their comically bad hair, but also by their low regard for women ...
As rapid technological changes in the 21st century continue to expand the types and volume of private electronic information, the Fourth Amendment’s privacy protections are evolving. Originally, “Fourth Amendment jurisprudence was tied to common-law trespass” and provided protections against searches of property. See, United States v. Jones, 565 U.S. 400, 405 (2012) ...
After not disturbing the Third-Party Doctrine for more than 40 years, the Supreme Court created a significant exception to it inCarpenter v. United States. Slip Op., 16-402 (Jun. 22, 2018). Under the Third-Party Doctrine, individuals who voluntarily provide personal information to third parties are deemed to relinquish their legitimate reasonable expectation of privacy in that information ...
