Hunton Employment & Labor Perspectives

Please join Hunton Andrews Kurth’s workplace safety attorneys for a complimentary webinar on Tuesday, October 29.  Our team will provide a complimentary CLE, A Year in Occupational Safety and Health Law - Workplace Violence, Heat, Marijuana, HazCom and More.

HuntonAK’s Labor and Employment practice has been recognized as nationwide leaders by Benchmark Litigation’s 2025 Labor and Employment guide.

“Ban-the-Box” legislation has seen steady growth throughout the country for more than two decades.  Currently, there is no federal legislation on the topic for private employers but a good number of states have limited their ability to inquire about or make decisions based on a prospective employee’s criminal background history.

Last year, the EEOC revealed its Strategic Enforcement Plan (“SEP”) for Fiscal Years 2024-2028.  In the SEP, the EEOC stated that a subject matter priority was “the continued underrepresentation of women and workers of color in certain industries and sectors.”  One such industry focus is on workers in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics) fields. 

Please join Hunton Andrews Kurth LLP for a complimentary webinar: Trade Secrets Litigation 101 – Preventing and Addressing Employee Data Theft (Part 2).  The CLE webinar will be presented on Thursday, October 10, 2024.  Registration open.

On September 27, 2024, the United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit (the “First Circuit”) entered judgment in favor of 7-Eleven, Inc. (“7-Eleven”) in Patel v. 7-Eleven, Inc., putting to rest a class action lawsuit 7-Eleven has been defending for more than seven years regarding allegations that its franchisees were actually employees of 7-Eleven, based on the application of the Massachusetts independent contractor statute.

The Supreme Court’s recent opinion in Securities and Exchange Commission v. Jarkesy (“Jarkesy”) was predicted to spur a wave of litigation challenging the constitutionality of various administrative agency’s civil enforcement powers. In our previous article, we noted that the Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs (“OFCCP”) may be an agency that faces such a challenge. A complaint filed in the Southern District of Texas by ABM Industry Groups (“ABM”) does just that.

On August 15, 2024, the California Supreme Court held in a unanimous decision that public employers are not “employers” within the meaning of the meal-and-rest-break provisions of the California Labor Code, and the California Private Attorneys General Act (“PAGA”) exempts public employers from penalties for violations of Labor Code provisions carrying their own penalties.  The Court’s ruling substantial limits public employees’ ability to sue for wage-and-hour violations.

On August 22, 2024, the Board ended its 50-year history of allowing consent orders in unfair labor practice cases.  In Metro Health Inc. d/b/a Hospital Metropolitano Rio San Pedras, the Board held that: “in all pending and future unfair labor practice cases, the Board will not terminate the case by accepting or approving a consent order.”

As we discussed in a prior blog entry, the National Labor Relations Board (“NLRB” or “Board”) ordered a novel remedy — consequential damages — against an employer in its decision in Thryv, Inc., 372 NLRB No. 22 (2021).  The current Board envisions this sort of remedy as covering a wide swath of potential financial repercussions against a party found to have violated employee rights, such as unlawful termination of employees.  This could, include, for instance, mortgage payments and credit card late fees.  With interest, these damages can quickly balloon to tens of thousands of dollars and change the risk and settlement calculus.