In today’s high-stakes environment, in-house counsel and HR professionals are often on the frontlines, responding to headlines that threaten business and reputational objectives.
Join McDermott Will & Emery’s Employment and Employee Benefits practice groups at a half-day forum in our Chicago office on Oct. 10. This forward-looking program is designed to drive conversation around emerging trends to help employers craft their own narrative, instead of being held captive by it.
Connecticut enacted a paid family and medical leave law, which provides paid leave to eligible employees and expand allowable reasons for such leave. This Connecticut statute closely tracks Massachusetts’s parallel statute and appears to be among the most generous paid family leave laws in the country. All private sector employers (and their employees who work in Connecticut) are covered.
Preemption technically means situations where federal law displaces state law: a function of the supremacy clause of the US Constitution. Often, lawyers speak of preemption even where it is one federal law displacing another or one state law displacing another. When statutory laws abut or overlap like tectonic plates, which should apply?
As large-scale cases proliferate under federal and state wage-and-hour laws, there is more and more reason to study plate tectonics for potential defenses. Thinking about preemption requires looking beyond the intricacies of the case at hand to broader issues of public policy; applying preemption as a defense requires thinking about more than the statute alleged in the complaint.
Finding preemption, like throwing the Eephus pitch, is an arcane but game-winning skill. Learn how to find it in this article from Michael Giambona.
Originally published by Law360, April 2019.
Kevin Connelly said unions will face an adjustment period as they seek to implement more creative methods of trying to retain dues-paying members. “I wouldn’t underestimate the unions. If someone wants to say this is the end of the day for public-sector unions—nope, not true,” he said. “There will be consequences, but I think the unions that operate in that sector will be clever enough to make the appropriate adjustments.”
Originally published by Law360, June 2018.
McDermott’s Benefits Emerging Leaders Working Group provides benefit professionals with tools to better serve employees in an ever-changing and evolving benefits landscape.
Presentations will tackle the latest benefits hot topics and best practice solutions, supplemented with important networking opportunities aimed to connect tomorrow’s benefit leaders with a broad network of professionals.
Planned agenda topics include:
The rights of transgender individuals have become a more prominent civil rights issue in recent years, and employers should be aware of how laws in this area impact their employment policies and treatment of transgender employees.
The UK Employment Appeal Tribunal has upheld the Employment Tribunal’s finding that Uber drivers are “workers”. It rejected Uber’s argument that Uber is simply a technology platform acting as an agent to connect self-employed Uber drivers with users of the ride-hailing app.
What Is the Issue?
The United Kingdom recognises three categories of employment status: employees, workers and self-employed contractors, each with varying levels of protection under employment law. Employees and workers are afforded greater protection than self-employed contractors, with employees having the full suite of UK employment rights. Workers are entitled to core rights such as statutory holidays, sick pay and breaks, and national minimum wage.
To recruit and retain top talent, employers often offer benefits more generous than required under the law. Such benefits include unlimited vacation, paid maternity leave and paid paternity leave. However, a recent US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) lawsuit filed against Estee Lauder Companies, Inc. (Estee Lauder) reveals how even the most well-intentioned of programs can result in a discrimination lawsuit.
In this “back to school” round-up, we take the opportunity to catch up on the most important UK employment law events and developments in 2017 to date.
The French government has announced labor reforms intended to promote flexibility and improved predictability at both the collective and individual level. The decrees should be approved by the president on September 22, 2017, and the parliament would have to ratify the decrees in the coming months. Their ratification is not expected to undergo major hurdles, but we will provide you with updates on this reform and its consequences on companies and employment in France once it has been approved.
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