Articles by PC Editorial Staff

Recently, the California Office of Administrative Law (OAL) approved the California Civil Rights Council’s (CRD’s) modifications to the state’s Fair Chance Act (FCA or “Ban the Box”) and related regulations that pertain to employment background checks in California. Under the FCA, most employers in California may not ask an applicant about their conviction history before making a conditional jo...

Recently, the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) set a new standard for instituting and enforcing workplace policies with respect to the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA). In a separate decision, the NLRB limited the rights of employers to discipline employees for some types of abusive conduct. Specifically, the decision applies if that behavior occurred while they engaged in concerted act...

Over a month after the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act (PWFA) went into effect, the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) issued a proposed rule to implement the PWFA. The EEOC posted the proposed rule on August 7th, 2023. Subsequently, it will be published in the Federal Register on August 11. Then it will be open for public comment for 60 days following that date. The PWFA went in...

On August 3rd, 2023, the Department of Labor’s (DOL’s) Wage and Hour Division (WHD) announced that a Texas healthcare provider will pay over $500 thousand in unpaid wages and overtime. According to WHD investigators, the employer failed to properly calculate overtime, denying its employees of earned wages. Earlier this month, the WHD announced a similar judgment in which six Connecticut restaur...

On July 26th, 2023, the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) released updated guidance on how the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) applies to employees and applicants with visual disabilities. The EEOC released the guidance on the 33rd Anniversary of the ADA. Concurrently, the Biden Administration released a presidential proclamation that signaled a renewed focus on the ADA ...

As the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) recently eliminated its backlog of Employee Retention Credit claims, it announced new procedures to deal with Employee Retention Credit scams and fraudulent submissions. Moving forward, the IRS will ramp up compliance work to ensure employers understand how to properly claim the credit and avoid scammers. The IRS also provided warning signs of scams and tip...

The U.S. Department of Labor’s (DOL’s) Wage and Hour Division (WHD) recently announced that six Connecticut restaurants and their owners must pay $858 thousand for minimum wage and overtime violations following a federal court’s consent judgment and order. The federal court originally granted the DOL a partial summary judgment in the case last year. Under the recent consent judgment, the employ...

Last week, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) announced a new Form I-9, Employment Eligibility Verification. The revised form includes several notable improvements. One such improvement is a checkbox that employers enrolled in E-Verify may fill in to indicate they used the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS’s) alternative electronic verification option to examine identity and...

Earlier this year, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) released its Annual Performance Report and Charge Statistics for fiscal year 2022, which showed a sudden increase in charges of religious discrimination. The number of religious-based charges increased by over 11,000 over the previous fiscal year (FY). In brief, the EEOC attributed this outlying statistic in its year-to-year ...

The Employee Benefits Security Administration (EBSA) recently announced that retirement plan fiduciaries with a firm based in New York will pay more than $124.6 million for retirement plan asset mismanagement. Specifically, the fiduciaries mismanaged the profit-sharing portion of the plan. The lawsuit alleged that the fiduciaries’ failure to diversify investments caused significant losses to th...