Law Adds to Busy Summer as Many Employers Also Prepare EEOC Pay Data Disclosures On July 31, 2019, Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker signed into law HB834, amending the Illinois Equal Pay Act in ways that will fundamentally alter hiring practices across the Land of Lincoln. By doing so, Illinois became one of at least 13 states that now restrict employers’ ability to use pay history in hiring and compensation decisions, as part of the effort to chip away at the persistent national gender pay gap.We previously wrote about this law here. Under the amendments, employers may no longer screen…

Illinois metropolis fourth US city to require notice of work shifts As we predicted here, the Chicago City Council passed the “Chicago Fair Workweek Ordinance” on July 26, 2019. The Ordinance replaces a similar predictable scheduling ordinance that had been proposed and tabled earlier this year. It aims to curtail employers’ use of so-called “standby time” work scheduling practices that often result in wide, unpredictable fluctuations in workers’ work hours and income from week to week. Here are a few of the most notable aspects of the Ordinance: It covers employers in the retail, hotel, manufacturing, restaurant, building services…

Many Employers Will Need to Reconsider Longstanding Drug-Free Workplace Philosophies Come January 1, 2020, just as some Illinois residents are taking their first lawful (at least under State law) puffs of marijuana or bites of a cannabis-infused gummy bear, many employers in the Land of Lincoln will likely be facing the ramifications of an even more dramatic change — their possible need to stop all forms of testing for marijuana use other than reasonable suspicion testing. From that day forward, the Illinois Right to Privacy in the Workplace Act (RPWA) will prohibit most employers from discriminating against applicants and employees…

Savine Employment Law Is Ready For The Future Because We’ve Lived It By Gary Savine A recent article in Law360presented the results of a new global report that shows more in-house lawyers, especially employment lawyers, will be launching job searches in the coming years, due, in part, to advances in legal technology. Conducted by Euromoney Thought Leadership Consulting on behalf of EY Law, the report found that 74 percent of companies surveyed either have or are willing to consider outsourcing day-to-day employment law work, as part of a projected mass outsourcing effort across the private sector to cut corporate…

Illinois Lawmakers Grapple With Risks Posed By Harvesting Data From Wearable Devices A bill introduced in the Illinois House, HB 3024, would amend Illinois’ Biometric Information Privacy Act (BIPA or the Act) to expand the law to cover EKG results from wearable devices, such as smartwatches. Passed in 2008, BIPA originally was enacted to address technologies that rely upon fingerprints, retina scans and other “biometric identifiers” for time clocks and security access. The Act prohibits businesses from collecting, storing or using biometric identifier information without the following: written policies, written notice to those from whom they collect the information, protocols…

Last-Minute Negotiations Result In Expanded Worker Protections. While media coverage of the closing moments of the Spring legislative session focused on recreational marijuana, taxes and infrastructure, Illinois lawmakers quietly were leveraging the momentum created by the #MeToo movement to pass the Workplace Transparency Act. Since we last reported on the bill here, lawmakers have expanded its scope to impose new obligations on employers. The new bill, SB0075, which passed both houses just before the legislature recessed and can be found here would: Mandate that employers conduct annual sexual harassment training and prescribe the content for the training, with special…