Many Americans are familiar with the formulation “reasonable accommodation,” which the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) requires employers to make on for employees who have a disability. The ADA is a federal law. Less well known is that New York City has its own counterpart law that protects employees with disabilities. The New York City […]

Every few months, social media is set ablaze with reports of an African-American employee, usually a woman, told by her boss to change her hair or face disciplinary action or termination. For example, in January, Brittany Noble, a black female news anchor in Jackson, Mississippi, alleged that she was fired for wearing her natural hair […]

The longest federal shutdown in U.S. history is having devastating effects, placing hundreds of thousands of federal workers in economic peril and potentially crippling the delivery of basic services for Native American tribes. It has also shut down the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), delaying Americans from receiving justice where their employers have illegally […]

In today’s political climate, we have all seen how heated political debates can get. A perfectly pleasant Thanksgiving dinner with family can instantly turn hostile once the topic of politics comes up. But what happens when that political fervor carries over into the workplace? Can a private sector employee be fired for his or her […]

Hourly workers’ paychecks can be unpredictable, varying drastically depending on their hours. Unscrupulous employers exploit this variance to short hourly employees of their full wages for their labor, often undetected. Tipped workers in most states are uniquely vulnerable to wage theft.  Most tipped workers earn a reduced hourly rate – in Washington, D.C., the tipped […]

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 […]

The fact that women, and black and Hispanic employees of all genders, continue to be paid less for the same work is gaining increasing national attention and is the focus of a variety of new laws, regulations, and lawsuits.[1] Evidence of Continuing Pay Disparities Data from the census show that large racial and gender pay […]

On May 15, 2017, the Freelance Isn’t Free Act went into effect in New York City, providing freelance workers with a statutory basis to recover in court for late or unpaid wages, retaliation, or other violations of the Act. Subject to a few exceptions, the Act applies to any individual (regardless of immigration status) who […]

Employees around the country who are being discriminated against on a prohibited basis, such as sex or race, may bring race discrimination, sex discrimination, age discrimination, and disability discrimination claims in federal court under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, the Equal Pay Act, the Age Discrimination in Employment Act, and Americans with Disabilities […]

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 […]