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It would be easy to say that the Supreme Court’s decision on Friday has nothing to do with the workplace and therefore presents no employment law issues.

But such an approach would not only be foolish, it would be wrong.

The full impact of the decision will be felt for an entire generation while a full analysis of the decision’s impact will take some more time too (though my partners have done a great job with one here).  But it’s apparent from the first few reads of the Court’s decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization is that it presents a real challenge for employers and is so disruptive in so many ways both for employers and employees.

First, the decision minimizes (at best) or ignores (at worst) the concept of “stare decisis” which is that the Court’s prior decisions become binding precedent — and therefore have meaning.  People can rely on those decisions to predict what will happen next and respect the decision once it gets made.  If the Court undermines that concept, it risks becoming exactly like the much maligned National Labor Relations Board. The NLRB is a federal agency that, some would argue, changes its mind depending on how the Board is composed (whether Democrat majority or Republican).  For example of such a flip flop, see one of my prior posts about the NLRB here.

This is not a good thing; the Rule of Law depends on people having some faith in the institution itself.  If people think the system is rigged to whatever party is in power, then the more likely they will be to minimize its importance or keep fighting until they think the system is in their favor.  Stare Decisis provided some measure of comfort to parties and gave employers the opportunity to plan for the future.…

Continue Reading Dobbs and the Impact of the Court’s Decision for Employers

With inflation running rampant, it’s easy to forget that changes to the state’s minimum wage continue to roll out.  Ever since the passage of the wage hikes a few years ago, employers have been dealing with $1 increases each year.

On July 1, 2022, the minimum wage per hour will increase to $14/hour.  Next year,…

With union organizing efforts making headlines at Amazon and Starbucks, a new bill in Connecticut is designed to make it even easier for unions to win organizing votes.

A bill banning so-called “captive audience” meetings won final approval from the Connecticut General Assembly late Friday; it moves to the Governor’s office where his approval…

In January 2021, I wrote about the potential for a new wave of lawsuits that employers needed to pay attention to — lawsuits (and criminal charges) based on antitrust law.  In that post, I highlighted a little-noticed case in which the U.S. Department of Justice had indicted a Texas company for its no poaching agreements…

With the end of the year finally here, I know I could do yet another post on the OSHA vax-or-test standard given that the Supreme Court on Wednesday announced expedited oral arguments on the legality of that rule and the vaccine mandate for healthcare workers. That’s now scheduled for January 7, 2022.

But really, with…

While mandatory vaccination policies are all the rage now, there’s an important new Connecticut law that is a “must-do” for employers here and not much time left to get into compliance.

Effective October 1, 2021, employers are prohibited from failing or refusing to provide a job applicant with the “wage range” of the position for…

A new website by Connecticut on cannabis use was announced by Governor Lamont’s administration over the weekend.   Unfortunately, it contains an error regarding the cannabis use and the workplace; it highlights the mess that has been created by the General Assembly on the cannabis bill.

Here’s one example.

Over the weekend, the website began…

On Tuesday afternoon, Governor Lamont issued new Executive Order 12 updating the mask guidance that the state has been operating under since way back in Executive Order 7NNN on August 14, 2020 (and Executive Order 7BB on April 17, 2020 before that).  The new guidance skews closer to the CDC guidance that we talked about…

As post-vaccination life kicks in, the complications for employers continue to mount.  No doubt life was a lot harder on lockdown, but some individual decisions for employers were easy — just work from home.

But over the last few weeks, judging from the calls I’m fielding from employers of all sizes, there’s a desire to…

If 2020 was a year full of twists and hairpin turns, 2021 is proving to be a worthy successor — at least when it comes to paid leave.

There are a lot of news articles out there but I thought a quick recap of where we are (and where we are expecting to go) would…