Labor Law Updates

Keeping you current on the ever changing labor laws

St. Louis’ minimum wage earners will soon see an increase in their pay. Our readers may recall an earlier blog post that St. Louis adopted a minimum wage ordinance (No. 70078) in 2015 that would increase the city’s minimum wage rate in a series of installments beginning October 15, 2015 and ending on January 1, Read more

Coming three years after their decision to ban the box, the District of Columbia has approved another anti-discrimination measure intended to increase employment opportunities for those in need of a second chance. On February 15, 2017, D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser signed the Fair Credit in Employment Act prohibiting employers from discriminating against applicants and employees Read more

Nationwide, “ban the box” laws are being adopted with increasing frequency. Broadly speaking, these laws prohibit employers from considering an applicant’s or employee’s criminal history in making employment decisions until a certain point in the hiring or deliberation process. Currently, 25 states, the District of Columbia, and many metropolitan areas have adopted ban-the-box type laws. Read more

The Washington State Department of Labor and Industries is hoping all employers will give its two new free phone apps a try: the Good Observation, Near-Miss and Accident Reporting App and the SafeMe App. We took them for a spin and give them both two-thumbs up! Good Observation, Near-Miss and Accident Reporting App The Good Read more

Retailers, rejoice: the North Dakota House of Representatives has passed a bill repealing the state’s “blue law” prohibiting businesses from operating on Sunday mornings. North Dakota’s Sunday Closing Law makes it a class B misdemeanor to “conduct business or labor for profit” or to “operate a place of business open to the public” on Sundays Read more

The ADEA & Disparate Impact The Age Discrimination in Employment Act (ADEA) prohibits employment discrimination against persons over the age of forty. One way an employee can demonstrate age discrimination is by showing that a specific employer policy or practice has a “disparate impact” on members of the protected class. For example, a particular hiring Read more

As we reported last week, citizens of Arizona city Flagstaff will get the chance in 2018 to decide whether to eliminate the “escalator” clause mandating that the municipal minimum wage remain $2.00 above state levels. It turns out, however, that the state minimum wage will undergo examination even sooner—and not by voters, but by the Read more

States across the nation continue the sick leave momentum. Each year, more states and municipalities are requiring employers to provide employees with sick leave time. Michigan might be the latest state to pass such legislation. Since 2014, several Michigan proponents have tried to generate enough signatures to send a paid sick time proposal to the Read more