Savine Employment Law Blog

Covering the Workplace

Subscribe
Visit Blog
By: Savine Employment Law, Ltd.

Blog Authors

gary savine

Latest from Savine Employment Law Blog

workplacedating-2.jpg
Chain’s Decision Reminds Boards, Executives, Workplace Dating Fraught With Risk Like many HR staff, we’re pouring another cup of coffee while we Monday morning quarterback the weekend’s news from McDonald’s that the board ousted CEO Steve Easterbrook for conducting what is described in the press as a “consensual relationship” in the workplace. The board asked for Easterbrook’s resignation despite his success leading a turnaround after disappointing financial returns in 2015. McDonald’s Chief People Officer also left the company for undisclosed reasons. Why HR Struggles With Workplace Dating What difficulties does workplace dating impose on organizations and what are the particular…
caveatemptorfinal.jpg
Appeals Court Finds Business Successors Can Inherit Employment Discrimination Liabilities Companies or individuals acquiring an existing business should determine if the seller faces potential civil rights violations and, if so, take this fact into account in the acquisition process. If a buyer overlooks these liabilities, they could inherit them, despite longstanding Illinois precedent against such “successor liability,” at least according to one appeals court. In People ex rel. Dep’t of Human Rights v. Oakridge Nursing & Rehab Ctr., the First District Appellate Court held that the general rule of successor corporate nonliability may not apply to Illinois Human Rights Act…
LGBTQfinal.jpg
Savvy Illinois Employers Will Plan Ahead for Landmark Rulings Today, the Supreme Court kicks off its new term with several employment cases, including cases on appeal from the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals right here in Chicago. Illinois employers should keep tabs on these cases and anticipate how the Court’s rulings will add to a bevy of new compliance obligations going into effect in 2019-20, all discussed below. LGBT Rights Under Federal Law – Will They Catch Up To Illinois Law? The Justices will consider a trio of cases that ask whether Title VII of the Civil Rights Act’s prohibition…
jailcellfinal.jpg
Two New Laws Encourage Employers To Overlook Past Incarceration In his inaugural address, Governor Pritzker promised to expand “true justice in our criminal justice system” and advance “economic inclusion” for Illinoisans who have previously been incarcerated. Two new laws carry out this promise and build on the efforts of 2015’s “Ban the Box” law to make it easier for the estimated 42 percent of Illinois residents with criminal backgrounds to avoid automatic disqualification and to get jobs. Illinois’ “Ban the Box” law, also known as the “Job Opportunities for Qualified Applicants Act” prevents certain employers or their agents from inquiring…
vinatagepunchclockfinal.jpg
Agency’s Action Adds To Heavy Slate Of New Employment Laws In 2020 This morning, September 24, 2019, the US Department of Labor (DOL) published its final overtime rule. You can find it in full on the DOL’s website. The final rule is effective January 1, 2020, giving employers about 100 days to review and adjust the pay of their exempt workforce to comply with the law. 4 Key Takeaways Of The New Rules The new rule increases the salary level for the white-collar exemptions (executive, administrative, and professional). New salary level for white collar exemptions will be $684 per…
benjaminsfinal.jpg
Agency’s Tactics For Battling The Gender Pay Gap Now Uncertain In a not-entirely surprising September 12, 2019 notice in the Federal Register, the EEOC announced that it plans on not renewing an Obama-era rule requiring employers to provide pay data as part of their annual employer information (EEO-1) report until after it assesses whether the two years’ worth of pay data a federal court ordered it to obtain under the rule is useful to its efforts to address gender pay gap. As we reported in March, the court decided in the case National Women’s Law Center v. OMB that…
donorfinal-2.jpg
Lawmakers’ Attention Likely To Turn Back To Paid Sick Leave Legislation This Fall With so many new major Illinois employment laws already enacted this year, even the most well-informed HR professionals would be forgiven if they felt unable to predict and plan for the next wave of workplace legislation likely to come down the pike before year’s end. Fortunately, Springfield lawmakers signaled their intentions on August 2, 2019 when Governor Pritzker signed into law the Illinois Donor Protection Act (IDPA). You can read the law here. At first blush, to private sector employers, the IDPA might appear insignificant. Most…
canstockphoto14114383.jpg
Time is Now to Comply with Salary History Law Many Illinois employers returning from summer holiday are facing a rude awakening as they discover that they now have less than a month – until September 29, 2019, to be precise – to revamp longstanding hiring practices or face sizable liability. As we previously reported here, earlier this summer Governor J.B. Pritzker signed into law a bill adding new teeth to Illinois’ Equal Pay Act. The reforms aim to chip away at the persistent national gender pay gap, by prohibiting employers from inquiring into job applicants’ pay history in…
stoplights.jpg
Latest Labor Board guidance may create more confusion and risk for HR On August 14, 2019, the National Labor Relations Board ruled in Cordúo Restaurants, Inc. that an employer could change its mandatory arbitration agreement to bar its workers from opting into a class action in response to being sued for wage and hour violations, and that a supervisor’s threatening statements to workers that they would be fired if they failed to sign the agreements did not violate Section 7 of the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA). You can read the full ruling here. Curdúo isn’t a Green Light…
FMLAfatherandstudent.jpg
Agency Spotlights Existing Path to School Visit Entitlements With HR’s current focus on complying with all the new Illinois employment laws scheduled to become effective in 2019-20, which we’ve summarized here , it’s easy for employers to lose sight of existing laws and their new applications in our ever- changing world. On August 8, 2019, the U.S. Department of Labor served up a useful reminder. In an FMLA opinion letter addressed to an anonymous inquiry, the DOL said that the wife of the inquirer can take intermittent leave from her job under the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) to…
Screenshot-2019-08-12-14.46.08.jpeg
Illinois Workplace Transparency Act Signed Into law And NLRB Hands Down New Union Election Rules The heat of the summer doesn’t seem to be slowing down State and Federal lawmakers as the Pritzker honeymoon continues, but before the doldrums of an election season can kick in. Here’s the latest: Illinois #MeToo Bill Now The Law For instance, on Friday, August 9, 2019, Governor Pritzker signed into law the Workplace Transparency Act (WTA), a bill inspired by the #MeToo movement that imposes several new obligations on employers to combat harassment, including a requirement to provide annual harassment training of workers, a…
canstockphoto1264672.jpg
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…
canstockphoto15550642-2.jpg
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…
Webinar is Part of the “HR Talent Management & Employment Law Boot Camp” Series On August 7, 2019 at 1:00 PM CST, Gary will be one of several featured speakers presenting “I Know What You Did Last Summer: Workplace Investigations,” a new webinar co-produced by Financial Poise and West LegalEdcenter™ . In a release, Financial Poise™ describes the webinar as follows: “Now, more than ever, employers must be prepared to promptly and effectively respond to complaints of workplace harassment and/or discrimination. Often, that requires knowing when and how to conduct an internal investigation. Given the significance of the issues often…
canstockphoto5792325-2.jpg
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…
ArcherytargetFinal.jpg
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…