Hunton Employment & Labor Perspectives

Executive Order 12866 requires federal agencies to publish an agenda of regulations they plan to propose, promulgate, or review in the coming one-year period.  The Department of Labor’s regulatory agenda showed ambitious goals for its agencies in 2022, as does President Biden’s Build Back Better Framework. Employers should brace themselves for increased enforcement activity from agencies such as the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (“EEOC”), the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (“OSHA”), and the Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs (“OFCCP”).

Yesterday, Governor Cuomo signed the last of several bills that massively overhauls New York State’s discrimination and harassment laws.  The changes, some of which are effective immediately, are explained in more detail here.

The main takeaways are as follows:

We previously posted on the unfortunate ruling in March 2019, when a Federal Court reinstituted the “Component 2” wage reporting in the annual EEO-1 Report.  The highly controversial requirement – that employers annually report, to the government, W-2 earnings and hours worked for all employees – had been proposed in 2016, but stayed by the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) in 2017.

This morning, the U.S. Supreme Court punted a key Equal Pay Act (“EPA”) case back to the Ninth Circuit because the decision’s author, Judge Stephen Reinhardt, passed away shortly before the decision was formally issued.

Yovino v. Rizo is a significant EPA case that has been winding its way through the courts for years.  In 2017, a Ninth Circuit panel held that a wage differential based on prior salary can qualify as a “factor other than sex” under the EPA.  But, in 2018, the Ninth Circuit, sitting en banc, came to the opposite conclusion: “prior salary alone or in combination with other factors cannot justify a wage differential.”  The en banc opinion was authored by Judge Reinhardt, who passed away 11 days before the decision was issued.  The opinion acknowledged the Judge’s passing with a footnote stating that voting had been completed and the decision was written prior to his death. 

Date: Thursday, November 16, 2017
Time: 12:00 PM to 1:00 PM PST

Please join Hunton & Williams LLP for a complimentary webinar that will address current concerns faced by employers in California. This program, co-sponsored by Welch Consulting, will examine the following issues:

• Fair Pay issues
• Recent PAGA concerns
• “Ban the Box” and background checks
• Sick leave
• Changing local and regional ordinances
• Sexual harassment

We will also discuss ways to address potential risks proactively, including the use of statistical analyses to avoid future litigation.

We hope you can join us for ...

The day employers have been waiting for, has finally arrived.  The government has indefinitely stayed the requirement that companies begin reporting “Component 2” wage data in their EEO-1 Reports.  Companies around the country are breathing a collective sigh of relief.

The United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit recently held in Marlow v. The New Food Guy, Inc. that an employer that pays its employees a set wage over the minimum wage can retain tips for itself and does not have to share them with employees. No. 16-1134 (10th Cir. June 30, 2017).

The New Food Guy, Inc., a Colorado company doing business as Relish Catering, employed Bridgette Marlow to provide catering services. Relish paid Marlow a base wage of $12 an hour and $18 an hour for overtime. Although this was well above the $7.25 federal minimum required by the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), Marlow sued Relish because it did not increase her wage with a share of the tips paid by customers. Relish moved for a judgment on the pleadings and the United States District Court for the District of Colorado held in its favor. After failing to get the Colorado court to reconsider the judgment, Marlow appealed.

Imagine that you are a company with two openings for the same position.  After selecting the two most qualified candidates, you offer each candidate a salary equal to his or her prior salary, plus 5%, pursuant to your established policy for setting new hire salaries.  On its face, your policy has nothing to do with sex, but does it violate the Federal Equal Pay Act?  This was the issue addressed by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in the recent decision Rizo v. Yovino, No. 16-15372, slip op. at 11–12 (9th Cir. Apr. 27, 2017).

On March 27, 2017, President Trump signed H.J. Res. 37, blocking the Fair Pay and Safe Workplaces Rule, the controversial rule enacted by the Federal Acquisition Regulatory (FAR) Council in August 2016, that legislators have criticized as a method to blackball federal contractors. The bill’s signing follows the U.S. Senate’s March 6, 2017 vote of 49-48 (along party lines) to formally disapprove of the rule.

Beginning next week, on March 13, 2017, San Jose employers must offer existing part-time employees additional work hours before hiring any temporary, part-time, or new worker. This is a result of a vote last fall by voters in San Jose, California who approved “The Opportunity to Work Ordinance” (Ordinance No. 2016.1, codified at Chapter 4.101 of the San Jose Municipal Code) – a local measure that directs employee hours and hiring practices.

San Jose’s Office of Equality Assurance, the local agency tasked with monitoring, investigating, and enforcing the Ordinance, recently issued its Opportunity to Work FAQs, which provides additional guidance on how employers can comply with the new ordinance.  Following more comprehensive scheduling ordinances passed in San Francisco and Emeryville last year, San Jose is the third northern California city to enact a scheduling ordinance.

When is “A Day Without A Woman”? 

Tomorrow, March 8, 2017.

What is the goal of “A Day Without A Woman”?

According to organizers, “[t]he goal is to highlight the economic power and significance that women have in the US and global economies, while calling attention to the economic injustices women and gender nonconforming people continue to face.”

Organizers are looking to end workplace discrimination and urge employers to adopt benefits such as paid family leave, sick days, adequate healthcare, fair pay, vacation time, and healthy work environments.

One month into 2017 and new pay equity laws already are springing up.  Philadelphia is now the first city to prohibit employers from using pay history information in making employment decisions.  New York Governor Andrew Cuomo has issued executive orders mandating that: (1) agreements entered into by the state require contractors to report their employees’ pay information; and (2) state agencies can no longer use candidates’ current or prior pay in making employment decisions.  Likewise, the Mayor of New Orleans has now issued an executive order prohibiting city departments from asking job applicants about salary history and requesting a study of pay disparity among city employees.

With Christmas falling on a Sunday this year, employers should be mindful of state blue laws, which sometimes require premium pay to hourly employees working on Sundays or holidays. Although most state laws, as well as federal law, do not require premium pay for work performed on holidays (unless, of course, the employee has worked more than 40 hours that week), there are a few exceptions, such as Massachusetts and Rhode Island.

On November 22, a federal judge in the Eastern District of Texas preliminarily enjoined the Department of Labor’s final overtime rule, which would have expanded overtime eligibility to executive, administrative, and professional employees making less than  $47,476 per year, who were previously exempt from the Fair Labor Standards Act’s requirements under its white collar exemption.  The final rule was scheduled to go into effect on December 1, 2016.

On November 16, 2016, Judge Amos L. Mazzant, heard more than three hours of oral argument from a group of 21 States (“State Plaintiffs”) challenging the Department of Labor’s new overtime rule. Following the hearing, the motion for a preliminary injunction of the rule was taken under advisement and a ruling is forthcoming on Tuesday, November 22,2016. Judge Mazzant’s pointed criticism of the rule during argument suggests employers may have reason to be optimistic.

When it comes to employee wage equality, California already has one of the most expansive laws in the country, and it is now attempting to go even further. On June 23, the Wage Equality Act of 2016 (“Wage Equality Act”), SB 1063, took one step closer to becoming law as it passed the California State Assembly’s Committee on Labor and Employment. The bill seeks to extend the protections of the California Fair Pay Act, which prohibits pay disparity based on sex for substantially similar work, to also prohibit such disparities based on race or ethnicity. Already approved by the State Senate on May 31, 2016, the Wage Equality Act will now be heard in the Assembly’s Appropriations Committee in August after which, assuming it passes, it will make its way to the Assembly floor. If California’s Wage Equality Act is enacted, it will likely create the strongest wage equality law in the United States.

On January 19, 2016, a series of bills in New York commonly known as the Women’s Equality Act will take effect. These laws are intended to help achieve pay equity, strengthen human trafficking laws and protections for domestic violence victims, and end pregnancy discrimination in all workplaces, by, among other things:

In late August, California legislators advanced Senate Bill 358 which aimed to further close gender pay gaps in California.  Considered one of the strongest proposed equal pay laws in the nation, Governor Brown indicated he would support SB 358, known as the California Fair Pay Act.  The bill was presented to Governor Brown for signing in early September.  Over a month after SB 358 was placed onto Governor Brown’s desk, on October 6, 2015, Governor Brown signed the bill into law.  The SB 358 amends Section 1197.5 of the California Labor Code and requires that an employer “not pay any of its employees at wage rates less than the rates paid to employees of the opposite sex for substantially similar work, when viewed as a composite of skill, effort, and responsibility, and performed under similar working conditions.” For an in-depth discussion of the California Fair Pay Act’s provisions, please visit Hunton & Williams LLP’s previous blog post.

The proposed rule will likely increase the cost of defending against equal pay cases for all employers, not just government contractors and subcontractors.

First appeared in the September 23, 2014, edition of InsideCounsel

You're Invited: Pay Equity Under The Obama Administration

Pay equity for women and minorities has been a priority throughout President Obama’s administration. President Obama has wielded his Executive power with increasing frequency in 2014. President Obama recently issued an Executive Order and a Presidential Memorandum that target the pay practices of federal contractors. Both actions are designed to increase transparency in employee compensation. They may have significant consequences for covered employers.

On April 8, 2014, in recognition of National Equal Pay Day, President Obama continued to advance his wage equality agenda by focusing on wage transparency through Executive Order on Non-Retaliation for Disclosure of Compensation Information (“Executive Order”) and a Presidential Memorandum entitled "Advancing Pay Equality Through Compensation Data Collection" (“Presidential Memorandum”).

Expanding on our December 21 post, the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission on January 11, 2011, announced that private sector workplace discrimination charge filings reached the “unprecedented level” of 99,922 during fiscal year 2010, which ended on September 30, 2010.  According to the data, all major categories of charge filings in the private sector, including charges against state and local governments, increased significantly.

For those who thought the proposed Paycheck Fairness Act had faded away, here is a wake-up call.  After more than a year since the bill was passed by the House of Representatives and introduced in the Senate, the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions is holding a new hearing on March 11 to focus on equal pay issues.

On July 15, 2009, the EEOC issued guidance entitled "Understanding Waivers of Discrimination Claims in Employee Severance Agreements." In this guidance, the EEOC generally explains the waiver of discrimination claims through release agreements and answers questions employees may have about the effect of those agreements on the filing of charges of discrimination and on severance pay. These questions include the following: "May I still file a charge with the EEOC if I believe I have been discriminated against based on my age, race, sex or disability, even if I signed a waiver ...