July 31, 2024 By: Thomas O'Connell “It’s Monday, April 7, 2014. It is a cool, mostly cloudy morning at an independently owned and operated McDonald’s in Los Angeles, California. That day, two employees allegedly “engaged in concerted activities with other employees for the purposes of mutual aid and protection, by discussing a disciplinary incident with co-workers ...
By: Matthew T. Drenan, Charles F. Whitman, & Alicia A. Belock As temperatures continue to rise these upcoming weeks, employers take heed of pertinent health and safety laws to ensure workplace compliance. In anticipation of further shifts in the regulatory landscape favoring additional worker protections, we take this opportunity to review existing and imminent regulations during times of extreme heat ...
Recently, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit provided a cautionary tale for trade secret owners who seek preliminary relief against a competitor who hires its former employees but do not clearly articulate the trade secrets the owner seeks to protect. In early 2023, Insulet Corp. sued EOFlow Co. in the District of Massachusetts for misappropriating trade secrets supposedly obtained from employees EOFlow hired away from Insulet years earlier ...
Three months ago, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) adopted a final rule to broadly ban employers from enforcing non-compete clauses against employees. In the weeks following the announcement, three lawsuits have been filed contesting the agency's authority to enact and enforce its ban on non-compete agreements. As things stand, federal courts are split and there is no nationwide injunction in place ...
Reminder It is ****illegal**** for a company to ****refuse**** to provide ****benefits**** (e.g., ****voluntary medical insurance****) due to an ****employee's failure**** to provide ****consent**** to the processing of personal data.This was the conclusion reached by the 3rd Cassation Court of General Jurisdiction in ****Resolution No. 88-1047/2024 dated 15 January 2024**** ...
On May 11, 2023, the Fighting Against Forced Labour and Child Labour in Supply Chains Act, S.C. 2023, c. 9 (the ?Act?) was passed. The purpose of this Act is to implement Canada?s international commitment to contribute to the fight against forced labour and child labour, and to require certain entities to report on the measures they have taken to reduce the use of forced labour and child labour ...
Quebec is currently facing a major shortage of physicians. To remedy the situation, several ministers in the CAQ government announced in early 2024 that significant changes would be implemented to reduce physicians? administrative burden. And so, on May 31, 2024, Minister of Labour Jean Boulet introduced Bill 68, An Act mainly to reduce the administrative burden of physicians ...
Texas recently enacted a new Workplace Violence Prevention law to protect healthcare employees from violence in Texas healthcare facilities. Texas also implemented a complementary notice requirement applicable to all Texas employers to encourage reporting incidents of workplace violence. Texas implements statutory protec- tions to prevent workplace violence against healthcare workers ...
Nearly two years following passage of the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 (IRA), Treasury and the IRS released the unpublished version of the final rule (Final Rule) for compliance with the IRA’s prevailing wage and apprenticeship requirements (PWA requirements). Taxpayers seeking to claim the highest available investment and/or production tax credits for renewable energy projects must comply with the PWA requirements ...
Introduction In 2020, faced with statistics showing that nearly one in two women and three in ten men believed they had suffered sexual harassment or assault in the workplace,1 the Minister of Labour expressed its intention to help prevent and address this issue. The government began by setting up a committee to examine cases of sexual harassment and assault (the ?Committee?). Its mandate was to analyze how such cases are handled in workplaces across the province ...
July 15, 2024 By: Roger L. Scott In September of 2023, Governor Gavin Newsom signed into law Senate Bill 553, which amended Labor Code section 6401.7 and created new section 6401.9 to require employers (with few exceptions) to develop and implement a detailed workplace violence prevention plan and to train their employees in addressing workplace violence. Employers were required to comply by July 1, 2024 ...
On June 28, 2024, Exempt Resolution No. 1,160 of May 31, 2024 was published in the Official Gazette, which approved the “Technical Guideline of the Public Health Institute that establishes the requirements for the application for modifications to the sanitary registration of biological products (M-MOBI)” ...
A recent appeal case upheld a breach of contract claim over a lifetime rail travel benefit delivered by a third-party provider. We examine the case and how employers can avoid such disputes through clear terms and conditions for employee benefit schemes ...
Continuing the series on protected characteristics under the Equality Act 2010 we focus on gender reassignment and the need for employers to understand the legal protections and the potential consequences of failing to comply with them. What is gender reassignment? A somewhat misunderstood protected characteristic, gender reassignment protects those who are either proposing to undergo, are undergoing or have undergone a process designed to change their sex ...
As previously reported, on April 24, the Federal Trade Commission passed a Final Rule that would render almost all non-compete agreements with workers unlawful, effective September 4, 2024. However, a recent decision from the Northern District of Texas blocked enforcement of that Rule for a short list of litigants and casts doubt on the Rule’s enforcement in the future ...
Roskomnadzor (Russian Data Protection Authority) plans to make it easier for personal data subjects to revoke consent to the processing of personal data Roskomnadzor proposes making it possible to ****revoke consent**** to the processing of personal data “in one click” ...
As we have previously commented, once COVID came along force majeure became, understandably, a hot topic but case law on the subject was light. We are now however starting to see a trickle of cases emerging which consider force majeure. In RTI Ltd v MUR Shipping BV however, the Supreme Court has now handed down a significant judgment that clarifies the rights and obligations of contracting parties under a force majeure clause ([2024] UKSC 18) ...
On August 1st, 2024, Law No.21,643 which amends the Labor Code regarding the prevention, investigation and sanctioning of labor, sexual harassment and workplace violence (the “Law”), will enter into force. General Ruling No.3813 (“General Ruling”), issued by the Superintendence of Social Security ("SUSESO") on June 7th, 2024, provides technical assistance in all matters covered by the new Article 211-A of the Labor Code ...
On August 1st, Law No.21,643, which amends the Labor Code regarding the prevention, investigation and sanctioning of labor, sexual harassment and workplace violence (the “Law”), will enter into force. In this context, on June 7th, 2024, the Labor Board issued ruling No. 362/19, which establishes the meaning and scope of the amendments introduced by the Law (the “Ruling”). The most relevant aspects of the Ruling are the following: 1 ...
June 18, 2024 By: Anne Marie Ellis Buchalter can assist by providing you with recommendations for testing laboratories, detailed analysis of state and federal PFAS regulations, create compliance programs tailored to meet regulatory requirements, assist in the preparation of necessary documentation including certificates of compliance, review and draft supplier contracts to include PFAS compliance and liability provisions, review your product lines, work with suppliers to understand PFAS usage,
June 14, 2024 By: Tricia A. Pham and Alexandra M. Shulman On Thursday, June 13, 2024, in Starbucks Corp. v. M. Kathleen McKinney, Case No. 23-367, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that district courts must apply a strict, four-factor test when adjudicating requests for preliminary injunctions brought by the NLRB against the employers it charges with unfair labor practices ...
Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) principles have emerged as a crucial framework for assessing the sustainability and societal impact of businesses ...
The gig economy was created out of a desire for services to be on demand with limitless flexibility. If elected, Labour has pledged to provide greater job security and remove the distinction between worker and employee – are the two in conflict? The gig economy is a term that describes a labour market where workers are hired to perform tasks on a short-term, flexible basis, rather than into permanent or full-time jobs ...
Employees have a statutory right not to suffer discrimination in the workplace and it is essential that employers, and those responsible for managing the workforce, fully understand the legal provisions and the potential consequences of failing to comply. Sexual orientation is one of nine characteristics that are protected by discrimination legislation ...
In the final part of our mini-series in dealing with DSARs, we look at the process of redacting when responding to a DSAR, and in particular, what information should be provided to an employee who has submitted a DSAR. Employees are increasingly seeking to raise DSARs within an employment context and in particular ahead of instigating legal proceedings. Responding to a DSAR can be a challenging, costly, and often time-consuming process ...
