Imagine, hypothetically, that you are the head of a massive technology company. You decide one day that you want to layoff, say, 50 percent of the workforce tomorrow while offering employees a severance agreement. What should you know?
My colleagues, Gabe Jiran and Keegan Drenosky, did a whole webinar on the subject last month that
Yesterday, Governor Lamont signed House Bill 6380 (Public Act 21-30), which adds another layer of complexity for employers engaged in hiring and also amends the state’s equal pay laws.
Here’s what employers need to know for the new law that goes into effect October 1, 2021 for wage ranges:
January 1st is typically a time for new laws to kick in and 2019 is no exception.
For employers, the biggest change is one that I discussed way back in May with amendments to Connecticut’s Pay Equity law.
The new law prohibits employers from asking a job applicant his or her wage and salary history.
Over the last several months, I’ve been asked to do far more sexual harassment prevention trainings than typical and the issue of profanity in the workplace has popped up.
No doubt that much of this is due to the recent spate of cases of very public sexual harassment and assault cases (Thank You Matt
Last night, I had the honor of being elected as Chair of the James W. Cooper Fellows Program of the Connecticut Bar Foundation, after serving for a year as Vice-Chair and Chairperson of the Fellows Education & Program Committee.
The Fellows are comprised of outstanding Connecticut lawyers, judges, and teachers of law; the Fellows put
My partner Gary Starr returns with this pre-Thanksgiving tale that seems appropriate not for the holiday, but for the headlines of late.
Happy Thanksgiving and stay out of trouble.
Another day, another celebrity figure accused of harassment.
Or worse.
Many of the accounts reveal the abuse of power and the lack of respect shown to
An applicant for a job posting in education lists his most recent relevant experience as occurring in 1973. You don’t bring him in for an interview.
Is it gender discrimination?
Beyond that, if he says that he is the most qualified candidate — do you have to hire him?
And if you don’t hire the
In an decision of first impression in Connecticut, a federal court on Friday ruled that a transgender discrimination claim based on a failure to hire can proceed under both Title VII and Connecticut’s counterpart, CFEPA.
While the groundbreaking decision in Fabian v. Hospital of Central Connecticut (download here) is sure to be the subject
As I said before, the notion that this might be a quiet year for employment law legislation at the Connecticut General Assembly has long since left the train station.
Indeed, we’ve appear to be swinging completely in the opposite direction. Anything and everything appears up discussion and possible passage this year — including items that really stood no chance in prior years.
I’ll leave it for the political pundits to analyze the why and the politics of it all. But for employers, some of these proposals are going to be very challenging, at best, if passed.
One such bill, which appeared this week on the “GO” list (meaning its ready for considering by both houses) is House Bill 6850, titled “An Act on Pay Equity and Fairness”. Of course, you won’t find those words in the bill itself which is odd. There is nothing about pay equity in the bill; indeed, it is much much broader than that.
It stands in contrast to, say, the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, which tried to tackle gender discrimination in pay directly.
This bill would make it illegal for employers to do three things. If passed, no employer (no matter how big or small) could:
You might be wondering: Isn’t this first bill duplicative of federal law? And the answer is yes, and then it goes beyond it. Federal labor law (the National Labor Relations Act) already protects two or more employees discussing improving their pay as a “protected concerted activity”. It’s been on the books for nearly 80 years. So, as noted in an NPR article:
Under a nearly 80-year-old federal labor law, employees already can talk about their salaries at work, and employers are generally prohibited from imposing “pay secrecy” policies, whether or not they do business with the federal government.
This provision goes beyond that by making it improper for an employer to prohibit an employee from even disclosing another employee’s pay.
Continue Reading “Pay Secrecy” Bill Goes Above and Beyond Other Proposals
I don’t care who you are: Somewhere, in a doctor’s waiting room, or a supermarket checkout line, you’ve seen the headlines of Cosmopolitan magazine.
But, as luck would have it as an employment lawyer, imagine my surprise when I saw this headline:
“He Did WHAT?! The Cosmo Guide to Surviving Sexual Harassment at Work