If you had April 23, 2024 as the biggest day in employment law of the year on your bingo card, congratulations. You won. Hands down. Yesterday was such a blockbuster of a day, it’s hard to wrap your head around it. (My partner Sarah Westby and I have tried, and have summarized the results on our sister blog, Employment Law Letter.) With new rules on non-compete agreements and overtime exemptions, there’s a lot to digest. First, the Federal Trade Commission released it’s final rule that bans virtually all non-compete agreements for workers in the United States. The rule is scheduled to go into ..read more

Tomorrow, the EEOC is expected to publish its final regulations for the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act. They were previewed in a press release earlier this week. Since nearly every lawfirm is producing their own summary of what are, in my view, fairly straightforward implementation regulations, this post will take a different tact — namely how these regulations are the same (or differ) from Connecticut’s own pregnancy accommodations statute and guidance. As Connecticut employers no doubt should recall, Connecticut passed expansive changes to the pregnancy discrimination law in 2017 back requiri ..read more

When you’re sick with a cold, you end up having some time to read and I came across a recent study of hiring practices of about 100 of the largest companies nationwide. Published by the National Bureau of Economic Research, researchers sent 80,000 résumés to 10,000 jobs from 2019 to 2021. Ultimately, the authors found evidence that some protected groups were not faring as well in hiring as the majority. For example, as The New York Times reported earlier this week, “On average, they found, employers contacted the presumed white applicants 9.5 percent more often than the presumed Black applican ..read more

Earlier this week, Governor Ned Lamont issued a press release supporting Senate Bill 12 which would dramatically expand the scope of the state’s current Paid Sick Leave law. Currently, Paid Sick Leave is available to “service workers” at certain employers with 50 or more employees. Passed in 2011, the law requires that these workers receive and then be able to use up to 40 hours of paid sick leave that they accrue to take care of themselves, their spouse or children. The proposed bill (which received a hearing but has not yet passed committee) would do away with some of the limits that are cur ..read more

As I continue the updates on legislation that is making its way at the General Assembly, it’s time to revisit a bill that has been floated in prior years — a bill banning many non-compete agreements. House Bill 5269 is this year’s version and it still has a number of restrictions that employers should be aware of. And given that the Labor Committee approved the bill earlier this month, this is something that is more than theoretical. The bill invalidates all noncompete agreements for employees on July 1, 2024 assuming any of the following conditions have been met: The employee is a non-exempt ..read more

It’s March and things are heating up at the General Assembly so let’s get right at the bills that employers should be aware of. Senate Bill 4 — which is deemed to be a Senate caucus priority bill, and thus something employers should pay attention to — redefines discrimination in a way that has never been done before and attacks non-disclosure agreements in doing so. A public hearing is scheduled for March 20th. The bill would create a new cause of action in court for the following “discriminatory practice” For an employer, by the employer or the employer’s agent to: (A) Refuse to hire or emplo ..read more

This month, I published a new article for Practicing Law Institute Chronicle entitled Neurodiversity in the Workplace. The article builds off a post I did last November by taking a look at some of the cases that have tackled the subject. For those unfamiliar with the topic, I summarized it in the article as follows: Neurodiversity, according to Harvard Health Publishing, is defined as “the idea that people experience and interact with the world around them in many different ways; that there is no one ‘right’ way of thinking, learning, and behaving, and differences are not viewed as deficits ..read more

Last week, Law360 quoted me in an article on marital status discrimination. (They timed it for Valentine’s Day; make of that what you will.) The gist of the article is that marital status discrimination is something for employers to be mindful of. And for that premise, I’m in agreement. Several states, including Connecticut, explicitly prohibit discrimination in employment on the basis of marital status. In fact, it’s right there in Conn. Gen. Stat. 46a-60(b)(1): It shall be a discriminatory practice in violation of this section. for an employer… to refuse to hire or employ or to bar or to dis ..read more

As I took a bit of a breather with some blog posts, I’m pleased to announce another new episode of the From Lawyer to Employer podcast that I’ve been hosting these last several months. On the latest episode, I invite Nina Pirrotti, an employee-side attorney who has appeared on this blog many times before, to talk about some of the latest developments in employment law. We tackle the current state of non-disclosure agreements (including some legislation that is being proposed at the state level), non-compete agreements, and even artificial intelligence. This 20-minute episode is perfect for you ..read more

Over on my firm’s sister blog, the Employment Law Letter, my colleagues have a post this week about the issuance of final rule on Independent Contractors by the United States Department of Labor. As they note, the Final Rule establishes “a six-factor test based on the economic reality of the worker and potential employer relationship and may have a substantial impact on a number of industries.” On first glance, it seems to make some sense when trying to figure out if someone is an employee or independent contractor. After all, the new test will return to a “totality of the circumstances” analy ..read more