Hunton Employment & Labor Perspectives

The EEOC recently issued long awaited guidance on how an employer’s use of software, algorithms, and artificial intelligence will be treated by the Commission under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). In issuing this guidance, the Commission focused on employers administering software that uses algorithmic decision-making or artificial intelligence in making employment decisions before and during employment. The Commission outlined three general areas in which the use of such technology may violate the ADA: (1) an employer not providing a reasonable ...

Earlier this month, Democrats in the House of Representatives introduced the “Wage Theft Prevention and Wage Recovery Act” (“Act”). This proposed legislation seeks to amend the Federal Labor Standards Act (“FLSA”) in several key ways.

First, the Act would require all employers to provide regular pay stubs and initial salary disclosures.

Second, the Act would change wage recovery by requiring payment at an employee’s agreed-upon wage rate, rather than at the minimum wage or minimum overtime wage rates, which the FLSA has never done and has traditionally been within ...

On May 7, 2022, the California Occupational Safety and Health Standards Board (“Cal/OSHA”) released guidance, in the form of updated FAQs and fact sheets, concerning the revised COVID-19 Prevention Emergency Temporary Standards (“ETS”) that were adopted on April 21, 2022, and became effective on May 6, 2022.  This ETS applies to non-remote workers in California, except those who work alone and those covered by the Aerosol Transmissible Diseases standard, and will remain in effect until December 31, 2022. 

Cal/OSHA’s recently issued guidance provides additional ...

In February, we examined newly passed New York City Local Law 32, which required employers to disclose salary ranges in job advertisements. The law was set to take effect on May 15, 2022, but, on April 28, 2022, the New York City Council passed an Amendment to Local Law 32 that pushed the effective date of the law back to November 1, 2022.

On April 11, 2022 Governor Glenn Youngkin signed HB 1173 into law, which replaces various provisions of the Virginia Overtime Wage Act (VOWA) with provisions largely consistent with the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA).

Assembly Bill 1651 or the Workplace Technology Accountability Act, a new bill proposed by California Assembly Member Ash Kalra, would regulate employers, and their vendors, regarding the use of employee data.  Under the bill, data is defined as “any information that identifies, relates to, describes, is reasonably capable of being associated with, or could reasonably be linked, directly or indirectly, with a particular worker, regardless of how the information is collected, inferred, or obtained.”   Examples of data include personal identity information; biometric information; health, medical, lifestyle, and wellness information; any data related to workplace activities; and online information.  The bill confers certain data rights on employees, including the right to access and correct their data.

On May 2, 2022, the Supreme Court granted certiorari to Helix Energy Solutions Group Incorporated after Helix lost before the en banc United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit in a sharply-divided opinion last year.  In Hewitt v. Helix Energy Solutions Grp., Inc., 15 F.4th 289 (5th Cir. 2021), the Fifth Circuit held 12-6 that employers must guarantee their day-rate workers a minimum weekly payment that is reasonably related to the amount those workers actually earn in that timespan for their workers to be exempt from the FLSA’s overtime requirements.  This minimum weekly payment must be a predetermined amount that does not change based on the number of days or hours actually worked, if the employer wishes to enjoy the FLSA’s exemptions to paying its day-rate workers overtime.

The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission has started to take affirmative steps to include non-binary classifications on agency forms.  In an announcement last month, individuals will be able to choose a non-binary gender markers when filling out intake and charge of discrimination forms used by workers for discrimination complaints levied against employers.  On these forms, an individual will be able choose “X” for the voluntary self-identification questions and use the prefix “Mx.”

On April 11, 2022, the National Labor Relations Board’s General Counsel urged the Board to revive the long-abandoned Joy Silk doctrine, which has not been in effect in nearly 50 fifty years.

Assembly Bill 2932, a new bill proposed by California Assembly Members Evan Low and Cristina Garcia, would amend Section 510 of the California Labor Code to change the workweek from the standard 40-hour workweek to a 32-hour workweek for companies with more than 500 employees.