If you live in Kentucky and are pregnant, planning to become pregnant, or breastfeeding, you should be aware of new protections that may apply to you and your employer. Last month Kentucky passed the Pregnant Workers Act with bipartisan support, making it the 25th state to pass specific legislation to protect pregnant employees. Federal laws […]

The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) announced a proposal to amend the Anti-Kickback Statute to expressly exclude from safe harbor protections rebates on prescription drugs paid by manufacturers to pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs), Part D plans, and Medicaid-managed care organizations.[1]  This proposal, if finalized, will alter the incentive structure for PBMs, benefiting consumers […]

As of October 9, 2018, New York State employers are now required to provide sexual harassment training pursuant to the State’s recently enacted sexual harassment prevention legislation, Section 201-g of the New York State Labor Law. This new law requires that all employers within New York, both private and public, provide annual anti-harassment training to […]

The federal Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) generally requires that employers pay employees at least $7.25 per hour. One of the few exceptions to the rule is “tipped employees” – including waiters, bartenders, and other employees who regularly receive gratuities for performing their jobs. The FLSA allows employers to subsidize the minimum wage paid to […]

As part of the national trend to pass state and local laws guaranteeing private-sector workers paid leave for family and caregiving responsibilities, Washington D.C. is poised to join California, New York, New Jersey, Rhode Island, and Washington state in offering this benefit. And I’m not alone in saying: it’s about time. A study conducted by […]

New York City workers and employee advocates cheered as the city last week passed legislation designed to protect some of its most vulnerable workers.  After being approved by the City Council on May 24, Mayor Bill de Blasio signed the Fair Work Week legislative package into law on May 30, 2017, stating that “thousands of […]

In the past year, lawmakers in Puerto Rico, Massachusetts, New York City, and Philadelphia have passed “salary history laws.” These new laws make it illegal for employers to ask job applicants about their current salaries or the salaries they earned at previous jobs. To put it simply, these laws take your salary history off the […]

Bureaucracy is boring. “Regulatory Plans,” “Notice and Comment,” “Final Rules”—the Administrative State tends to glaze eyes. But for a moment last July, the media set its gaze on bureaucracy. That’s because a bureaucratic agency, the Department of Labor, proposed a rule that could increase the wages of millions of workers. Specifically, the DOL proposal makes […]

The District of Columbia is on the brink of becoming the most generous place in the country to become new parents.  If the Universal Paid Leave Act of 2015 becomes law, DC workers will be entitled to 16 weeks of paid leave for the birth of a child or other qualifying family or medical event. […]

As the Supreme Court prepares to address the constitutionality of same-sex marriage bans, the acceptance of gay marriage continues to blossom across the religious spectrum. Most notably, earlier this month the Presbyterian Church USA — the largest Presbyterian denomination in the U.S., with some 1.8 million members —adopted a definition of marriage that is more […]