Legal – Page 2 – Workforce

May 25, 2021May 25, 2021

How to enforce mask rules at work without breaching ADA confidentiality rules

If an employer is supposed to keep an employee’s vaccination status as a confidential medical record, how is an employer supposed to enforce the CDC’s most recent guidance that permits fully vaccinated individuals to unmask?

The EEOC makes it clear that an employer encounters zero legal impediments from “asking or requiring an employee to show proof of receipt of a COVID-19.” But once you obtain that information from an employee, you still must maintain it as a confidential medical record under the ADA.

The ADA requires employers to keep confidential any medical information they learn about any employee and store it confidentially and separately from an employee’s personnel information. An employer may only disclose this information to other personnel on a “need to know” basis.

So, if you intend to follow the CDC guidelines, you need a process to know which employees are vaccinated and which are not, which would involve the disclosure of vaccination status. Then, you need to communicate that information on a limited basis to those managers or supervisors who need to know that information to enforce your mask rule for the unvaccinated.

As long as you limit the disclosure to the narrowest group who reasonably and in good faith legitimately need to know which employees are, and are not, vaccinated, in this employment lawyer’s opinion such disclosure should pass muster under the ADA’s confidentiality rules. (As with all things, check with your own employment counsel before rolling out such a policy.)

Jon, you ask, won’t everyone know who is and is not vaccinated just by looking at who’s marked versus maskless? No really, as some fully vaccinated employees may choose to keep wearing a mask. Moreover, even if only unvaccinated employees wore masks, that would be a function of you following CDC guidelines, not the result of a breach of confidentiality.

Tomorrow, vaccine-status harassment.

May 19, 2021

OSHA sends employers a strong signal that it intends to follow the CDC on masks

One open issue stemming from the CDC’s about-face on masking for the fully vaccinated is how OSHA would address these new guidelines. When OSHA published its Guidance on Mitigating and Preventing the Spread of COVID-19 in the Workplace in late January, it made it clear that one’s vaccination status had zero impact on an employer’s obligation to require masks in all cases.

Workers who are vaccinated must continue to follow protective measures, such as wearing a face covering and remaining physically distant, because at this time, there is not evidence that COVID-19 vaccines prevent transmission of the virus from person-to-person.

In the world of COVID-19, 3 ½ months is an eternity, so here we are just 3 ½ months later living in a country without facial coverings for the fully vaccinated. So what says OSHA?

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has issued new guidance relating to recommended precautions for people who are fully vaccinated, which is applicable to activities outside of healthcare and a few other environments. OSHA is reviewing the recent CDC guidance and will update our materials on this website accordingly. Until those updates are complete, please refer to the CDC guidance for information on measures appropriate to protect fully vaccinated workers.

Until further notice, the story on masks at work remains as follows:

Fully vaccinated employees = maskless, if they choose.
Unvaccinated employees = masks.

As for me, I’ll be OK going maskless in places in which I know everyone else maskless is also fully vaccinated. Otherwise (hello Costco, and any other store that is putting people on the honor system) I’ll be keeping my mask on until further notice.

If the last year has taught me anything it’s that if left to their own devices too many people will fail to do the right thing. I just don’t trust that everyone maskless will be fully vaccinated. There just seems to be too high of a correlation between those who are anti-vax, anti-mask, and pro “liberty.” So thank you, maskless and unvaccinated. Your selfishness will require me to keep wearing a mask in many public places.

May 18, 2021August 25, 2023

Oilfield pipeline inspectors working across 40 states awarded $3.8M in back wages

timeclock, wage and hour, schedule, timesheet rounding

FIS Holdings LLC, a pipeline inspection company based in Sand Springs, Oklahoma, was fined $3,852,968 after violating overtime requirements of the Fair Labor Standards Act for 1,100 of its employees, a Labor Department investigation discovered.

The oil and gas industry depends on independent inspection companies like FIS Holdings to protect this essential infrastructure. The employees, who work in 40 states ranging from Massachusetts to California and Idaho to Alabama, keep more than 2.6 million miles of pipe in the U.S. secure, the Labor Department said in an April statement.

Investigators discovered that the company, which does business as Frontier Integrity Solutions Operations LLC and operates in the U.S. and Canada, paid workers a fixed amount per day, regardless of the number of hours that they worked. The practice resulted in violations when employees worked more than 40 hours in a workweek, but the employer failed to track those hours or pay workers overtime.

The employees typically worked between 50 and 60 hours per week. The employer’s failure to keep records of the number of hours employees worked also resulted in recordkeeping violations, the Labor Department release stated.

Kate Bischoff, an employment attorney at tHRive Law & Consulting LLC, said that managing employees’ time and attendance across multiple states shouldn’t necessarily complicate the process. The employer wasn’t following federal law for tracking time and paying overtime, she said. And that responsibility cuts across the entire organization, not just a single department like human resources or payroll.

“Everyone needs to play a part in compliance,” Bischoff said. “Frontline managers are important to get accurate time records from each employee. Payroll needs to verify, compile data including deductions, and ensure pay stubs are accurate. And, HR needs to make sure everyone has the tools and knowledge to do their jobs accurately.”

Many employers are looking for ways to make payroll as easy as possible, including paying fixed rates to non-exempt employees, misclassifying workers as independent contractors, and not requiring employees conduct paperwork when their actual work is dangerous, Bischoff said.

Bischoff pointed out that the investigation wasn’t handled by one office and one investigator but was a much bigger effort by multiple field offices to get the outcome for FIS employees.

Also read: Federal contractors fined $293K by Labor Department for wage violations

Bischoff said it’s clear that the Labor Department is focusing on enforcement over guidance.

“The Biden administration’s Department of Labor under Secretary Walsh is going to focus on enforcement as a major motivator for employers to get their wage and hour houses in order,” she said.

Bischoff advised employers to talk with their attorneys and their technology vendors to ensure compliance before a Labor Department investigator comes knocking.

“The Department of Labor’s focus on enforcement is designed to be a deterrent for all employers to motivate them to comply with the law,” she said. “Work with an attorney to really focus on making sure your I’s are dotted and T’s are crossed on wage and hour issues.”

Book a demo today to see how to build schedules, manage labor costs and ensure labor compliance with Workforce.com’s No. 1 employee scheduling software.

April 26, 2021

Another reason not to mandate the COVID-19 vaccine for employees

I’ve not hidden my belief that employers should not be mandating that their employees receive the COVID-19 vaccine as a condition of employment. Now, OSHA offers yet another reason why employers should recommend, but not mandate, the vaccine.

Per OSHA, if the vaccine is mandatory, then an employer must record an employee’s adverse reaction or side effects on its OSHA log.

If I require my employees to take the COVID-19 vaccine as a condition of their employment, are adverse reactions to the vaccine recordable?

If you require your employees to be vaccinated as a condition of employment (i.e., for work-related reasons), then any adverse reaction to the COVID-19 vaccine is work-related. The adverse reaction is recordable if it is a new case under 29 CFR 1904.6 and meets one or more of the general recording criteria in 29 CFR 1904.7.

I do not require my employees to get the COVID-19 vaccine. However, I do recommend that they receive the vaccine and may provide it to them or make arrangements for them to receive it offsite. If an employee has an adverse reaction to the vaccine, am I required to record it?

No. Although adverse reactions to recommended COVID-19 vaccines may be recordable…, OSHA is exercising its enforcement discretion to only require the recording of adverse effects to required vaccines at this time. Therefore, you do not need to record adverse effects from COVID-19 vaccines that you recommend, but do not require.

A few more points that OSHA made about this issue.

1. To avoid reporting, the vaccine must be truly voluntary and an employee cannot suffer any repercussions from that choice. For example, an employee’s choice to accept or reject the vaccine cannot affect a performance rating, bonus payment, or professional advancement. An employee who chooses not to receive the vaccine cannot suffer any repercussions from this choice.

2. The method by which employees might receive a recommended vaccine does not matter. This rule also applies even if an employer makes the COVID vaccine available onsite or otherwise makes arrangements for employees to receive it offsite. As long it the employee’s choice is voluntary, side effects and reactions are not recordable.

So there you have it. Yet another reason not to mandate that employees receive the COVID vaccine — the administrative burden of recording reactions and side effects, and the risk of potential OSHA citations and fines for failing to do so.

April 14, 2021

Labor Department reopens the floodgate to liquidated damages in wage and hour investigations

restaurant industry employees, wage and hour compliance for employers

The Department of Labor’s breakup with liquidated damages in wage and hour investigations lasted only four years.

Late last week, the agency announced that it would again seek liquidated damages (an amount equal to the unpaid wages themselves) in investigations, undoing a policy change made by the Trump administration.

According to the DOL, it will “return to pursuing liquidated damages from employers … in its pre-litigation investigations provided that the Regional Solicitor of Labor or their designee concurs with the liquidated damages request. … Liquidated damages shall not be assessed by WHD where the employer has set forth credible evidence of a good faith defense or the where the RSOL deems the matter inappropriate for litigation.”

What does this mean for your business? You have twice the financial stake in getting your wage and hour house in order as soon as possible.

If the DOL investigates, you should expect to pay double what you would have in the past four years. Your $X in unpaid wages will take $X*2 to settle with the DOL.

If your only defense to these liquidated damages is “credible evidence of good faith,” you better take steps to create that good faith now, such as by having your employment lawyer sign off on how you classify and pay your employees.

Once the DOL comes knocking, it will be too late.

March 31, 2021

COVID-19 vaccination cards will be required to do lots of things — possibly even working

According to the Wall Street Journal, COVID-19 vaccination cards are our only proof of vaccination status and will soon be as essential as a drivers’ license or passport. With no national or statewide centralized databases of vaccination records, the piece of paper you receive with your vaccine dose is your only proof of vaccination.

The article suggests that we’ll need this record to do lots of things moving forward, such as travel. What about returning to in-person work? Can employers ask for or require that employees provide proof of vaccination?

According to the EEOC, the answer is yes as to the ask.

Is asking or requiring an employee to show proof of receipt of a COVID-19 vaccination a disability-related inquiry?

No. There are many reasons that may explain why an employee has not been vaccinated, which may or may not be disability-related. Simply requesting proof of receipt of a COVID-19 vaccination is not likely to elicit information about a disability and, therefore, is not a disability-related inquiry. However, subsequent employer questions, such as asking why an individual did not receive a vaccination, may elicit information about a disability and would be subject to the pertinent ADA standard that they be “job-related and consistent with business necessity.” If an employer requires employees to provide proof that they have received a COVID-19 vaccination from a pharmacy or their own health care provider, the employer may want to warn the employee not to provide any medical information as part of the proof in order to avoid implicating the ADA.

The question then becomes what does an employer do if an employee cannot provide proof of vaccination? If the vaccine is mandatory and a condition of employment, it can deny access to the workplace or even terminate, provided that it is considering exceptions for employees’ disabilities and sincerely held religious beliefs, practices and observances. If the vaccine is not mandatory, why ask for the vaccine record in the first place?

We are entering a very interesting era of privacy, including employee privacy. If you are not mandating the vaccine, while you are within your legal right to ask about vaccination status, why would you? Do you really want to catalogue your employees’ vaccination status and for what purpose?

March 30, 2021

Let’s meet employees where they are on their pronouns

In Meriwether v. Hartop, the 6th Circuit recently decided that a state university cannot force a professor to use students’ preferred gender pronouns, and permitted the prof to proceed with his lawsuit challenging the school’s discipline for his misgendering.

The plaintiff, Nicholas Meriwether, a philosophy professor at Shawnee State University and a devout Christian, challenged the school’s decision to discipline him for violating a policy that instructors were to use a student’s preferred pronouns after a student accused him of refusing to properly identify her as a woman or with she/her pronouns. Meriwether claimed the policy violated his First Amendment free-speech and religious freedoms. The 6th Circuit agreed enough to re-institute his claim.

Traditionally, American universities have been beacons of intellectual diversity and academic freedom. They have prided themselves on being forums where controversial ideas are discussed and debated. And they have tried not to stifle debate by picking sides. But Shawnee State chose a different route: It punished a professor for his speech on a hotly contested issue. And it did so despite the constitutional protections afforded by the First Amendment. The district court dismissed the professor’s free-speech and free-exercise claims. We see things differently and reverse.

Unless you are a public employer governed by the Constitution and the First Amendment protections it guarantees, Meriwether has limited applicability to your workplace, your rules and your employees. Moreover, after Bostock v. Clayton County, it’s likely a Title VII violation to intentionally misgender an employee.

Nevertheless, legal or illegal, Meriwether can teach us some important lessons about meeting employees where they are. Here are some things to think about regarding gender, pronouns, and your employees.

1. Educate yourself about the use of pronouns. When I went to school I learned that “he” refers to a singular male, “she” to a singular female,” and “they” to plural wo/men. That is no longer the case. A man can identify as “she” and a female as “he,” and they/them pronouns are used for individuals who identify as non-binary, gender-fluid, or whoever chooses to use them.

2. Do not assume what pronouns your employees use. Just because someone presents a particular way doesn’t mean they their pronouns fit match that presentation.

3. If you’re unsure, ask. Your employees who use alternate pronouns will be more than happy to help you.

4. Avoid gendered language. For example, use “y’all” instead of “you guys” and “everyone” or “people” instead of “ladies and gentlemen” or “men and women.”

More to the point, if you insist that you must refer to someone born with a Y chromosome as “he” and two X chromosomes as “she,” why do you care? If an employee identifies as female (regardless of whether she was born a male), why do you care what pronoun she uses?

This issue is nothing more than a solution in search of a problem. You are doing way more harm to the mental well-being of your employees if you misgender them than you are doing to other employees by having them rethink how they use pronouns.

Any other answer to this issue is bigotry, period. And, in 2021, we should be well beyond bigotry of any kind.

March 19, 2021July 24, 2024

Wage and hour violations cost restaurant $697K

The U.S. Department of Labor under the Biden administration is ramping up its enforcement of wage and hour violations as a popular Chicago restaurant whose employees often worked for tips only was fined nearly $700,000.

The department’s Wage and Hour Division recovered $697,295 in back wages for 60 employees following an investigation of Tank Noodle Inc. Investigators found the employer owed some workers more than $10,000 each in back wages and identified numerous violations of the Fair Labor Standards Act’s minimum wage and overtime requirements.

Inaccurate time and attendance records

The agency also found the business owner failed to keep accurate records of the number of hours employees worked, as required by law.

In October 2020, the wage and hour division notified Tank Noodle, a popular Vietnamese restaurant in Chicago’s trendy Uptown neighborhood, that they were in violation of the FLSA. Tank Noodle signed an agreement to pay the back wages they owed Dec. 7, 2020.

Using an effective time and attendance system helps prevent the kind of wage and hour violations that led to the steep penalty incurred by Tank Noodle, said Tasmin Tresize, president of Workforce.com.

“While it’s unclear what type of workforce management system was utilized, it has evidently led to major violations in the wage and hour code,” Tresize said.

Shortly after the November presidential election, Michael Lotito, an attorney with Littler in San Francisco and co-chair of Littler’s Workplace Policy Institute, offered his thoughts on changes in Labor Department enforcement under the Biden administration. He was quoted as saying the division will likely revisit overtime standards and issue rules dealing with pay entitlement for off-the-clock work, like checking email from home.

“Enforcement will be aggressive, especially against certain industries like fast food, janitorial, construction and other targets. The department will also coordinate with state DOLs to cooperate with one another as investigations progress,” Lotito said.

Large amount of back wages owed

The Tank Noodle investigation recovered a considerable amount of back wages for 60 employees in an industry whose essential workers are often among the lowest paid, said Wage and Hour Division District Director Thomas Gauza in Chicago.

“Failing to accurately record the hours employees work does not prevent a federal investigation, the discovery of violations and ultimately, back wage recovery,” Gauza said in a press statement. “This case shows that employers that attempt to gain an unfair competitive advantage by flouting the law will be held accountable.”

Violations of tip pooling, overtime requirements

Investigators found that Tank Noodle employed some servers to work only for tips, failing to pay them any direct wages, as the law requires. Tank Noodle also shorted servers when the employer pooled tips each day, and divided them evenly among all staff, which illegally included management, according to the Labor Department.

The FLSA does not permit management to participate in tip pooling arrangements. The restaurant violated overtime requirements when it paid some workers flat amounts per day, regardless of the number of hours that they worked, the Labor Department said. Doing so resulted in violations when those employees worked more than 40 hours per week but the employer failed to pay overtime.

Tresize noted that as the Labor Department looks to be taking a more aggressive approach to each case, “It’s important that businesses invest in solutions to reduce their noncompliance risk.”

Effective restaurant employee scheduling best practices

Using best practices for an effective restaurant employee schedule will boost wage-and-hour compliance, avoid understaffing and labor cost overruns. One way to start scheduling in advance without the hassle of paperwork is with an online restaurant scheduling system.

See how to build your restaurant’s employee work schedule with ease and remain in compliance with all labor laws. Sign up for a free trial of Workforce.com’s shift scheduling software today.

March 18, 2021

Employers facing lawsuits for failing to pay for pre-shift COVID-19 screenings

In the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, I asked this question: “Are employers legally responsible for paying workers for the time it takes to record their body temperatures before entering the workplace?”

My answer was a legal, “Probably,” and a moral, “Definitely.”

This isn’t a “what does the law allow” issue; this is a “what’s right is right” issue. If you’re requiring your employees to queue in a line to take their temperature before you’ll let them enter the workplace, pay them. Don’t be cheap and don’t count pennies.

Your employees are scared. They are risking their own personal health and safety, and that of everyone who lives in their homes, to keep your essential business up and running. They could just as easily stay home, limit their exposure, and collect unemployment. What they need is your compassion, not your penny-pinching. Times are tough for everyone. I get it. But your business shouldn’t go belly up if you pay each employee for a few extra minutes of time each day.

But since this is a legal blog, we might as well take a fresh look at the legal issue, courtesy of a recently filed lawsuit against The Merchant of Tennis Inc., a San Bernardino, California, racquet sports retailer. According to Law360, among other wage and hour violations, José Hernandez Solis claimed that his former employer illegally failed to pay employees for their time spent undergoing

COVID-19 temperature checks at the beginning of the shifts.

Law360 points out that Walmart faces similar allegations in another recently filed California lawsuit. According to that lawsuit, Walmart failed to pay its employees for the 30-45 minutes spent each workday for COVID-19 temperature screening and questioning.

Legally, the standard, per SCOTUS’s decision in Integrity Staffing Solutions v. Busk, asks whether the pre-shift activities are “integral and indispensable” to an employee’s principal activities (“necessary to the principal work performed” and “done for the benefit of the employer”). It’s hard to fathom a situation during a pandemic in which pre-shift health screenings don’t meet this standard.

I think employers getting sued over this issue have real (and expensive) exposure. Don’t join them. Do the legal thing. Do the right thing. Pay your employees for this time.

March 1, 2021

Employee grievances including wage theft, COVID-19 concerns come to a head for one brewery

The sign on the door of Platform Beer’s Columbus, Ohio, taproom reads: “The entire Platform Columbus crew has quit. The taproom is closed until further notice. Thank you!”

The employees and their former(?) employer are battling it out on Twitter.

-vs-

Oliver Northern, the employee leading the walkout, told Alive Columbus that “employees started seriously discussing walking out about a week ago, frustrated by a growing list of grievances that he said the company had not taken steps to address.” He added that they initially intended to use the walkout as a bargaining tool with management, but that conditions had gotten so bad that no one had any interest in remaining with the company no matter its response.

What does it all mean?

1. If these employees simply walked off the job in protest instead of quitting their jobs, an alphabet soup of employment laws would have protected their jobs. The NLRA (protected concreted activity), FLSA (wage and hours), and OSHA (safety) are just a few examples of anti-retaliation protections these employees would enjoy. Because, however, these employees quit, these anti-retaliation measures are largely moot (although I could craft an argument that post-employment retaliatory acts such as defamation could still trigger one or more of these statutes).

2. This employer has a massive PR mess. No matter how meritorious or genuine the employees’ claims, the employees thought enough of them to quit their jobs en masse. An employer simply cannot allow these issues to fester until they boil over into a mass protest. If an employer doesn’t know that its employees have these concerns, then that employer’s managers and supervisors aren’t doing their jobs. They are your eyes and ears, and they must understand their role as such.

Moreover, open-door policies and other prophylactic measures aren’t worth their weight if you don’t take them (and the issues employees bring to you) seriously.