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California To Ease Back Mask Mandates: What Does This Mean for Employers?
February 10, 2022 • Christina Tantoy
Category: Legal Updates
California recently announced that it will lift its mask mandate for vaccinated residents in indoor public places starting on February 15, 2022. This means that California no longer requires employers to mandate face coverings for vaccinated employees while indoors. And all employees, regardless of their vaccination status, are no longer required to wear a face covering while outdoors unless there is an outbreak in the workplace.
California Supreme Court Heightens Employers’ Burden for Defending Whistleblower Claims
February 3, 2022
Category: Legal Updates
The California Supreme Court set a new, more employee-friendly, evidentiary standard for whistleblower retaliation claims. In Lawson v. PPG Architectural Finishes, Inc., the Court held Labor Code section 1102.6, not the McDonnell Douglas test, provides the appropriate framework for evaluating whistleblower retaliation claims brought under Labor Code section 1102.5. Because of this, employers will have to meet a higher burden to show by clear and convincing evidence that they did not retaliate based on the employee’s alleged whistleblower activities.
California Covid-19 Supplemental Paid Sick Leave Program
February 1, 2022 • Christina Tantoy
Category: Legal Updates
Governor Newsom recently announced that California will enact another COVID-19 Supplemental Paid Sick Leave program, which essentially revives the 2021 supplemental paid sick leave program that expired last year on September 30th. We are still waiting on the official Order with details on the 2022 Program, but here is what we know thus far:
Supreme Court Blocks COVID-19 Vaccine Rule for Businesses
January 14, 2022 • Hayden R. Pace, Shirley A. Gauvin
Category: Legal Updates
In a 6-3 decision, the US Supreme Court voted to stay the vaccine-or-test regulation, ruling that the Biden administration’s vaccine-or-test requirements for large private companies exceeded their authority. Separately, the Court ruled that a more limited vaccine mandate could stand for workers employed by government-funded healthcare facilities.
Florida Passes Law Restricting Private Business Vaccine Mandates
November 22, 2021
Category: Legal Updates
Following the legal challenges facing OSHA’s Emergency Temporary Standard mandating vaccinations, Florida passed legislation banning private employers from mandating COVID-19 vaccines unless several exemptions are offered to employees. The law, signed during a special legislative session on November 18, 2019, does not explicitly prohibit private employers from mandating vaccination, but rather imposes restrictive requirements on any private business that chooses to implement such a policy.
OSHA’s ETS and the NLRB’s Recent Guidance
November 17, 2021 • Jordan A. Fishman
Category: Legal Updates
Based on recent guidance from the Office of the General Counsel of the National Labor Relations, covered employers with unionized workers must engage their employees’ unions when developing their vaccination and/or testing policies to comply with OSHA’s new ETS rule (“ETS”). The Board has emphasized employer’s duty to bargain concerning changes in terms and conditions of employment where employers are allowed discretion in implementation. Since ETS gives covered employers discretion with regards to implementing certain of its requirements, employer’s must bargain with their employees’ unions.
EEOC Issues Guidance for Employers on Handling Religious Accommodations to Vaccine Mandates
November 8, 2021 • Christina Tantoy
Category: Legal Updates
Federal OSHA recently published its Emergency Temporary Standard (ETS) requiring certain private employers to adopt mandatory vaccination and/or COVID testing policies. Considering the ETS and other local/state vaccine mandates, we expect the number of employees submitting requests for religious accommodations to workplace vaccine mandates to only increase.
OSHA's Emergency Temporary Standard Vaccination & Testing Policies
November 5, 2021 • Hayden R. Pace
Category: Legal Updates
OSHA has released its “Emergency Temporary Standard” (ETS) in response to President Biden’s employer vaccination mandate on November 4, 2021. The details of the new ETS may be found here. OSHA has also issued a Fact Sheet and a Summary of the ETS.
What Are The Limits Of A Court’s Ability To Enforce A Non-Compete Agreement?
October 28, 2021 • Anne-Marie Mizel
Category: Legal Updates
The parties in the case of Daneshgari v. Patriot Towing Services, LLC, No. A21A0887 (Ga.App. Oct. 21, 2021), had entered into a four-year non-compete agreement in June of 2016 that Daneshgari and his partner began to violate within a month after signing the agreement. After PTS sued to enforce the agreement in 2018, a trial court in Georgia granted PTS’s motion for a preliminary injunction and ordered the defendants to cease violating the noncompete provision. The defendants ignored the court’s injunction and continued to operate their competing business. The trial court found Daneshgari in willful civil contempt of the preliminary injunction and ordered him to be incarcerated until he paid PTS $20,000 in attorney fees. Less than one week later, Daneshgari paid the $20,000 and was released from incarceration.
Effective January 1, 2022, a new law exempts certain unionized janitorial employees from suing under the Private Attorneys General Act of 2004 (“PAGA”). On September 27, 2021, Governor Newsom signed SB 646 into law which specifies that unionized janitorial workers covered by a valid CBA will no longer be allowed to bring civil actions under PAGA.