Many employers in Utah use non-competition agreements to protect their confidential information, customer relationships and investment in employee training and development. In a somewhat surprising move, the usually employer-friendly Utah State legislature has signaled its willingness to join California and a handful of other states in attempting to regulate these kinds of agreements.
The Utah
Now that the calendar has turned to 2016, this is a good time for employers in California to ensure that they are up to speed on the new laws that took effect on January 1. Here are some of the highlights.
SB 358 (Gender Wage Differential)
Existing law already prohibits employers from paying women less
Oregon employers should all be aware that Oregon’s new Paid Sick Leave (PSL) law goes into effect on January 1, 2016. We originally reported on the the PSL law’s requirements in July of this year.
Late yesterday, the Oregon Bureau of Labor and Industries (BOLI) published its final rules implementing Oregon’s PSL law: download
Stoel Rives labor and employment attorney Adam Belzberg and water resources attorney Wes Miliband were quoted in a Society for Human Resources Management (SHRM) article titled “California Drought Has Wide-Ranging Effects in Business Community.” The article examines the effects of California’s long-lasting drought on the state’s job market, specifically on the agricultural and
Joining over a dozen other California cities that have adopted or are considering adopting a local minimum wage, the Sacramento City Council has voted to approve an ordinance that will raise the City’s minimum wage. Under the ordinance, the minimum wage in Sacramento will increase to $10.50 by 2017, $11.00 by 2018, $11.75 by 2019,
Flu season is fast approaching, and this winter, Tacoma employers will join Seattle employers in being required to provide paid sick leave. On February 1, 2016, Tacoma’s new paid sick leave ordinance goes into effect. As we have blogged about before, Tacoma is just the latest of a number of state and local jurisdictions
* October 11, 2015 Update: Governor Brown announced he has vetoed AB 465
On August 27, 2015, the California Assembly approved AB 465. The bill, which was approved by the California Senate on August 24, would prohibit California employers from requiring most individuals to enter into arbitration agreements as a condition of their employment.
Background checks can provide California employers with vital information concerning their employees. In order to protect individual privacy rights, however, the California legislature has created two separate laws governing the procedure for such checks: the Investigative Consumer Reporting Agencies Act (“ICRAA”), which generally governs reports concerning “character information,” and the Consumer Credit Reporting Agencies Act
The Ninth Circuit released a precedent-setting Americans with Disabilities Act (“ADA”) decision yesterday, and it’s a big win for employers. The Court held that an employee who makes “serious and credible threats of violence toward his co-workers” is not a “qualified individual with a disability” and therefore cannot state a claim under the ADA or Oregon disability law. Karen O’Connor, Brenda Baumgart and Andrea Thompson from Stoel Rives represented the employer in this case, Mayo v. PCC Structurals, Inc., and a link to the Court’s decision is here.
Plaintiff’s Stress Leads to Death Threats in the Workplace
Plaintiff was a long-term welder at an industrial facility. Despite a 1999 diagnosis of major depressive disorder, he worked without significant issue for decades. In 2010, plaintiff and a few co-workers claimed a supervisor bullied them at work. Shortly after a meeting among plaintiff, a co-worker and the company’s HR director to discuss the supervisor, plaintiff began making threatening comments. He told a co-worker that he “felt like coming down to [the facility] with a shotgun and blowing off” the heads of his supervisor and a different manager. Among other comments, he also told other co-workers that he planned to come to the facility during the day shift “to take out management” and that he “wanted to bring a gun down to [the facility] and start shooting people.”Continue Reading The Ninth Circuit Joins Its Sister Circuits in Ruling That an Employee Who Threatens Co-Workers with Violence Is Not “Qualified” Under the ADA
It’s been an active legislative session in Oregon this year regarding laws affecting the state’s employers. Hot on the heels of enacting laws relating to paid sick leave, noncompete agreements, and employee privacy on social media, Governor Kate Brown also recently signed into law House Bill 3025. That law will make