In 2018, in response to the #MeToo and #TimesUp movements, New York State enacted laws to provide stronger protections against workplace sexual harassment, including mandating that New York employers have a complaint and investigation process and a sexual harassment policy, and provide their employees with training.

On June 19, 2019, the New York Legislature voted to further reform New York law and to extend protections under the New York State Human Rights Law (“NYSHRL”) to employees of all protected categories from all forms of discriminatory harassment in the workplace.  See NYS Assembly Bill No. A8421.  The bill is expected to be signed by Governor Andrew Cuomo, who supported the measure.

Once enacted, some provisions will take immediate effect while others will be phased in over the course of one year.  Here is the timeline for some of the provisions:

In September 2018, California passed SB 1343, which expanded the sexual harassment training requirements for California employers.  Previously, employers with 50 or more employees were required to provide at least two hours of sexual harassment training to all supervisory employees within six months of their assumption of a supervisory position and once every two years thereafter.

SB 1343 expands the training requirement in two key ways.  First, it requires employers who employ five or more employees to provide sexual harassment training.  Second, in addition to training supervisors, employers must now provide at least one hour of sexual harassment training to all nonsupervisory employees by January 1, 2020, and once every two years thereafter.  As a result, all employees will need to be retrained by January 1, 2022.

The good news for employers is that the California Department of Fair Employment and Housing (“DFEH”) is required to develop online training courses that employers can use to satisfy their obligation to provide sexual harassment training.  The bad news is that the DFEH still has not done so and there is no date certain by which the online training courses will be available.  However, the DFEH has posted a sexual harassment and abusive conduct prevention toolkit, which includes a sample sexual harassment and abusive conduct prevention training.  It is available here: https://www.dfeh.ca.gov/wp-content/uploads/sites/32/2018/12/SexualHarassmentandAbusiveConductPreventionTrainingToolkit.pdf.  However, unlike the online training courses that will be available, the toolkit is intended to be used in conjunction with a qualified trainer.

With only six months until the end

This week is UK Mental Health Awareness Week.

Managing mental health in the workplace is an increasing priority for employers, with a recent survey highlighting costs to business of nearly £35 billion a year due to sickness absence, reduced productivity and staff attrition.

The employment law issues associated with poor mental health are complex and include stress, personal injury, disability discrimination, bullying and harassment and unfair dismissal.

Employers can do much to manage the impact of poor mental health on their business, with a focus both on encouraging good mental health in the workplace through awareness, education and appropriate support frameworks, and on how best to manage mental health issues that do arise.

Bryan Cave Leighton Paisner LLP has a team of knowledgeable lawyers and other professionals prepared to help employers manage mental health workplace issues. If you or your organization would like more information on this or any other employment issue, please contact an attorney in the Employment and Labor practice group.

The #MeToo movement continues to make headlines across the globe, toppling more than 200 powerful U.S. company leaders in entertainment, media, sports and a variety of other industries.  According to EEOC reports, sexual harassment charges have increased by 14% and EEOC-filed lawsuits asserting harassment have increased by 50%.  Larger amounts of cash are being paid to settle harassment suits, and those amounts may be minor compared to the reputational damage of being tried in the court of public opinion.

Directors have long grappled with how to oversee company “culture” and employee behaviors.  Now many boards find themselves wedged between a rock and a hard place, as they struggle to balance the need for swift action when a complaint is made versus the need for appropriate due process rights for the accused.

Boards increasingly are expected to investigate stale and non-actionable claims and off-duty conduct.  They are also expected to treat wrongdoers swiftly and severely.  Employees and stockholders push for transparency in investigations, as boards temper the need for transparency with the risks of defamation, tort or other claims that may be brought by the accused, as well as personal privacy rights when dealing with controversial, off-duty conduct.

The potential unintended consequence of polarizing genders also must be monitored by the board.  Recent research found that two-thirds of male executives hesitate to hold one-on-one meetings with women in more junior positions for fear they could be misconstrued.  This behavior effectively deprives one gender of valuable mentorship and opportunities to interact with

Employers with operations in California should be aware of the California Consumer Privacy Act (“CCPA”), a new privacy law that applies to data collected about California-based employees.   HR professionals should be aware that, although the CCPA refers to “consumers,” as currently drafted the CCPA’s definition of a “consumer” will apply to California-based employees.

Which employers will have to comply with the CCPA?

Employers with employees in California will need to comply with the CCPA if their business falls into one of the following three categories:

What are the key implications of having to comply with the CCPA?

The Employers who have to comply with the CCPA will be subject to the CCPA’s:

The CCPA will go into effect in early 2020, and employers who must comply should be

In October 2018, the New York City Council passed two bills, Int. 879-2018 and Int. 905-2018, to supplement existing federal and state laws concerning lactation accommodation policies in the workplace.  Currently, New York State Labor Law Section 2016-c  mandates employers to provide employees with a reasonable number of breaks; and a private sanitary space, other than a restroom, with a chair and flat surface on which to place the breast pump and other personal items, to express breast milk during the workday.

Effective March 18, 2019, Int. 879-2018 requires NYC employers, with four or more employees, to provide lactation rooms[1] with an electrical outlet, as well as refrigerators, in reasonable proximity to work areas, for the purposes of expressing and storing breast milk.  Those employers who cannot provide a lactation room, as required under the new law because of undue hardship, are required to engage in cooperative dialogue with affected employees to find a reasonable, alternative accommodation.

The second measure, Int. 905-2018 requires employers to “establish, and distribute to all new employees, policies describing lactation room accommodations, including the process by which an employee can request such accommodation”.  The policy shall: (1) specify how an employee can submit a request for a lactation room; (2) require the employer to respond to such a request no later than five (5) business days; (3) provide a procedure to follow when two (2) or more individuals need to use the lactation room at the same time,

French Parliament passed a bill last December 21, 2018 introducing urgent economic and social measures to improve employees’ purchasing power.

One measure concerns the payment of an exceptional bonus of up to 1,000 euros net, exempted from social contributions and income tax, to employees earning up to 3 times the yearly minimum wage. Another is an exemption from certain social contributions and from income tax for any overtime worked as from January 1, 2019.

The exceptional bonus measure concerns those employees that earn up to three times the minimum wage and is capped at 1,000 euros. The bonus must be paid between December 11 and March 31, 2019. Existing bonuses or those provided by employment agreements, company practices, collective or company labor agreements, and planned salary increases cannot benefit from the exemptions.

The amount of this bonus may only vary according to the level of remuneration, employee classification, effective presence during 2018 and working time. If an employer decides to grant a bonus to all of its employees, only those having earned up to € 53,945 in 2018 will benefit from the exemptions. As a reminder, social contributions amount to up to 25% for employees and 42% for employers. An employee without a spouse or children who earns up to three times the minimum wage, would pay up to 14% of income tax.

This bonus needs to be provided for by a company collective agreement or an agreement entered into with the personnel representatives. It may alternatively be unilaterally determined

In a word: Yes.  In fact, there are many.

The most notable obligation under the Family and Medical Leave Act – the obligation to provide protected leave for a qualifying reason – does not apply until the employee has become eligible for leave under the Act.  However, many other obligations apply even before an employee becomes FMLA-eligible:

• Employers may not manipulate the size of a worksite or the number of work hours available to an employee in order to avoid employee eligibility for FMLA leave.
• Employers may not induce an employee to waive prospective rights under the FMLA, such as inducing a pre-eligible employee to waive the right to take leave once the employee becomes eligible in exchange for some other employer-provided benefit.
• Employers must not retaliate against an employee who, before becoming eligible for FMLA leave, requests leave that will begin after eligibility is achieved. See Pereda v. Brookdale Senior Living Communities, Inc., 666 F.3d 1269 (11th Jan. 10, 2012) (holding that the FMLA prohibits an employer from harassing, criticizing the performance of, and terminating an employee in response to a pre-eligibility request for post-eligibility leave, because to hold otherwise would create “a loophole . . . whereby an employer has total freedom to terminate an employee before she can ever become eligible.  Such a situation is contrary to the basic concept of the FMLA”).
• Employers must give accurate information to an employee about whether the employee is eligible for leave. When an employee is given inaccurate information
  

On Sunday September 30, 2018, while many of us were busy setting our Fantasy Football lineups, outgoing Governor Jerry Brown signed a number of work-related bills arising in response to the #MeToo movement that will substantially alter employers’ exposure to liability for workplace harassment, prohibit many common practices used to reduce adverse publicity surrounding workplace harassment claims, and impose additional training and inclusion requirements.

SEXUAL HARASSMENT OMNIBUS BILL, SB 1300

The most far-reaching of the new laws is SB 1300, the Sexual Harassment Omnibus Bill, which amends the California Fair Employment and Housing Act (“FEHA”).  Under SB 1300, FEHA will now expressly affirm some harassment-related court decisions and disavow others, embedding into the statute the following legal concepts and ever-expanding scope:

• The plaintiff in a workplace harassment suit is only required to prove that a reasonable person subjected to the discriminatory conduct would find, as the plaintiff did, that the harassment so altered working conditions as to make it more difficult to do his or her job.  It is not necessary to show a tangible decline in productivity.
• A single incident of harassing conduct is sufficient to create a triable issue regarding the existence of a hostile work environment if the harassing conduct has unreasonably interfered with the plaintiff’s work performance or created an intimidating, hostile or offensive working environment.  (Here, SB 1300 expressly rejects a decision authored by #MeToo casualty Alex Kolinski, a former judge on the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, which provided that a one-time physical encounter was
  

As of July 1, 2018, Georgia is now one of 16 states that have banned the use of a hand-held cell phone while driving.  Under the new Hands-Free Georgia Act (House Bill 673), drivers in Georgia may not:

• Physically hold or support a wireless communication device or stand-alone electronic device with any part of the body;
• Write, send, or read any text based communications on such devices;
• Watch a video or movie on such devices; or
• Record or broadcast a video on such devices.

The Hands-Free Georgia Act does allow drivers to use a single button on a wireless device to make a voice phone call.  Under the new law, drivers may also use a wireless device for voice-to-text communications and for navigation purposes.   Drivers may use a wireless device in a lawfully parked vehicle, but not while the vehicle is at a stop light or in stopped traffic.

Violations of the Hand-Free Georgia Act carry a fine of up to $50 for a first conviction, $100 for a second conviction, and  $150 for a third conviction.  First-time offenders can avoid a fine by appearing in court with a device or receipt for a device that allows for hand-free calls.

Similar hands-free laws have also been enacted in California, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Maryland, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, Washington, and West Virginia, as well as the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, Guam, and the U.S. Virgin Islands.

With the growing use