Protecting Employers Since 1985
Last week the United States Supreme Court issued its highly anticipated and controversial decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health, overturning Roe v. Wade. Whereas Roe had held for nearly 50 years that the right to an abortion was guaranteed by the U. S. Constitution, Dobbs disagreed, giving the issue back to the states to…
Read MoreIt is becoming clear that union employees in the last year or so have high wage expectations. Contract settlements are becoming much more difficult to achieve. Here are some of the reasons for it. Covid is a big part of it. Employees will regularly say “we worked our butts off during Covid, risked our health,…
Read MoreOn June 1st the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, in Chicago, reversed a lower court’s dismissal of FMLA claims where the plaintiff employee’s request to use FMLA leave, had not been denied. The appellate court held that a verbal conversation that included an alleged threat to discipline the employee for taking more…
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Construction industry labor law is very different from regular labor law. The labor agreements are different, and there is often no negotiating by employers who are stuck with an area-wide, multi-employer contract. The organizing process is typically different. Usually there are not NLRB elections and unions will attempt to organize by putting pressure on the…
Read MoreToday, the Illinois Supreme Court issued its long-awaited decision on whether the “exclusive remedy” provision of the Illinois Workers’ Compensation Act bars BIPA claims against Illinois employers. Unfortunately for employers, the Court ruled that workers’ compensation exclusivity does not bar BIPA claims against employers, thus leaving the floodgates open for further costly, and usually class action,…
Read MoreAfter weeks of consternation, uncertainty and litigation, the fate of OSHA’s Emergency Temporary Standard (“ETS”), which required employers with 100 or more employees to implement mandatory COVID vaccination policies, is now sealed – and it has been done by OSHA itself. After the U.S. the Supreme Court issued its decision to stay the OSHA mandate…
Read MoreIn a companion decision to its ruling on the OSHA vaccine mandate, the Supreme Court issued another stay – but this one on injunctions that had been issued enjoining regulations issued by the Secretary of Health and Human Services mandating that recipients of Medicare and Medicaid funding (e.g., hospitals, outpatient rehabilitation facilities, skilled nursing facilities,…
Read MoreIn a decision released this afternoon, the Supreme Court put a halt to the OSHA Emergency Temporary Standard that requires employers with 100 or more employees to implement a mandatory vaccine policy, under which employees must either be vaccinated for COVID or undergo weekly testing at their own expense, on their own time, or be…
Read MoreIn the on-again-off-again legal environment surrounding the OSHA vaccine mandate, on Friday, December 17, 2021 the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals lifted the Fifth Circuit’s stay of OSHA vaccine mandate and reinstated the Emergency Temporary Standard (ETS). The ETS, which requires employers with 100 or more employees to implement and enforce a mandatory vaccine policy…
Read MoreOn November 17, 2021, OSHA announced that, given the decision of the Fifth Circuit, it is suspending enforcement of its COVID vaccine mandate: On November 12, 2021, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit granted a motion to stay OSHA’s COVID-19 Vaccination and Testing Emergency Temporary Standard, published on November 5, 2021 (86…
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