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

Led, in part, by a crusade from former Fox News hosts Gretchen Carlson and Julie Roginsky, who settled private cases with Fox News involving sexual harassment and signed non-disclosure agreements (NDAs), we’re likely to see a bill at the General Assembly this year to ban employers’ use of NDAs and non-disparagement agreements in discrimination complaints.

One of my most popular segments on this blog has been the ongoing “dialogue” with Nina Pirrotti, an employee-side employment law attorney that we do from time to time. Nina is a partner at Garrison, Levin-Epstein, Fitzgerald & Pirrotti, P.C. based on New Haven and is a member of the Executive Board of the

Last week, the NLRB issued a landmark decision in McLaren Macomb that is already shaking up how private employers (both unionized and non-unionized) should consider severance agreements.

My colleagues have the full recap of the decision over at our sister blog, Employment Law Letter, from Friday and I highly recommend reading that first.

The key

Within the last few days, the pace of new guidance from both the state and federal governments has slowed down just a bit.

Now, we seem to be preparing for the next ‘phase’ of this pandemic.

Whatever that looks like.

The state courts have been at a virtual standstill but we are starting to hear

This blog has tried to stay apolitical throughout its 12+ years so I’m not going to start talking politics now.

But, over the last week, the issue of confidentiality provisions and non disparagement clauses in settlement agreements of discrimination claims has moved front and center of the political debate between Senator Elizabeth Warren and Michael

The Connecticut General Assembly is already busy with a full compliment of employment law bills under consideration.  At this point, it seems likely that several will pass in one form or another and thus employers should be playing close attention to the developments.

Here are a few of the Senate ones that I’m watching (

There’s been a lot in the news of late about “outrageous” provisions found in an separation agreement between an employer and an employee, like confidentiality.  Indeed, some proposed legislation would restrict the use of some provisions.  

So I thought it would be helpful to go over what we typically see in a separation agreement.

First

starrMy colleague Gary Starr returns today with a story worth reading about the need for employers to secure confidential information.  Although it is based on Massachusetts, the concepts it covers may have some carryover to employers elsewhere as well.  

Employers that maintain records of their employees and customers and allow employees have access to