Gibbons Law Alert

Gibbons Law Alert

Author: Gregg Settembrino

Pay Equity Compliance Front and Center in New Jersey Department of Labor’s Proposed Regulations for the Temporary Workers Bill of Rights

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Posted in Employee Benefits

On August 31, 2023

The New Jersey Department of Labor recently issued proposed regulations for the Temporary Workers Bill of Rights (TWBR). The proposed regulations include new definitions and further guidance for employers to comply with TWBR’s pay equity requirements. The proposed regulations are open for public comment until October 20, 2023. By way of background, the TWBR, which became fully effective on August 5, 2023, seeks to protect more than 127,000 temporary workers working in the state and employed through a temporary help service firm in designated occupations, including protective services; food preparation and serving; building and grounds cleaning and maintenance; personal service and care; construction labor, helpers, and trades; installation, maintenance, and repair; production; and transportation and material moving. The TWBR, among other things, implements detailed wage notice requirements to be provided to temporary workers in both English and the temporary worker’s primary language, recordkeeping requirements, advanced notice for changes to temporary worker schedules, pay equity, and anti-retaliation rights with a rebuttable presumption for any disciplinary action taken within 90 days of a temporary worker’s exercise of those rights. The goal of the TWBR is to strengthen employment protections for temporary workers in these designated occupations, and employers need to be mindful of the TWBR’s requirements for compliance purposes. The TWBR’s pay equity component requires temporary workers...

Unintentional Consequences? The District Court of Maryland Holds Evidence Failed Rule 37(e)’s “Intent to Deprive” Requirement

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Posted in E-Discovery: Legal Decisions and Court Rules

On July 10, 2023

A recent opinion from the District Court of Maryland highlights the challenges litigants face proving intent to deprive under Rule 37(e)(2) when seeking sanctions for spoliation of electronically stored information (ESI). In Gov’t Emps. Health Ass’n v. Actelion Pharm. LTD., et al., Magistrate Judge Mark Coulson set forth the requirements to prove entitlement to remedial measures or sanctions under Rule 37(e)(1) and (2) and then applied these requirements to decide the ESI spoliation claims before the court. This blog has written extensively on what is required to trigger Rule 37(e) and resulting sanctions. In June 2017, defendant Actelion (“defendant”) was purchased by Johnson & Johnson (“J&J”). Following the acquisition, Actelion migrated its data to J&J, which managed the data of both companies. On November 19, 2018, the plaintiff filed this antitrust litigation against Actelion alleging the plaintiff was forced to pay higher prices for one of Actelion’s drugs because of the unavailability of a cheaper generic version caused by the defendant’s blocking of competition. Soon after, J&J issued a legal hold to preserve relevant information for the antitrust litigation. The defendant’s custodians included in the legal hold were determined by the defendant’s then in-house counsel (“Thompson”). Absent from the legal hold were five former defendant employees (“at-issue custodians”) with documents relevant to the antitrust litigation....

NLRB Reaffirms Test Set Forth in Republic Aviation With Respect to Employees’ Right to Display Union Insignia Under the NLRA

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Posted in Labor

On October 17, 2022

Recently, in Tesla, Inc., the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) held that Tesla had violated the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) by banning workers from wearing pro-union attire, and reaffirmed the long-standing precedent established by the Supreme Court in Republic Aviation Corp. and its progeny, holding that when an employer attempts to impose any restriction on a worker’s right to display union insignia, the employer must prove “special circumstances” justifying the restriction. By way of background, Tesla manufactures electric vehicles at a facility in Fremont, California, where they are assembled by production associates in General Assembly (“GA”). Tesla’s team-wear policy requires its production associates to wear black cotton shirts with the company logo or plain black T-shirts, along with black cotton pants. In the spring of 2017, there was a union organizing campaign, during which the associates began to wear black shirts with pro-union insignia as opposed to team wear. Shortly after the workers had started wearing the pro-union apparel, Tesla began to strictly enforce its team-wear policy, which it had not done previously and which prohibited workers from wearing the black pro-union shirts rather than the required team-wear shirts. Pro-union insignia, however, was not banned completely, as the associates were permitted to wear union stickers on their team-wear shirts. The union’s organizing campaign ultimately...

New Jersey Supreme Court Decision Explains Requirements to Assert Statutory Good Faith Defense to Wage and Hour Claims

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Posted in Wage and Hour

On March 4, 2021

The New Jersey Supreme Court recently ruled that employers could not rely on determinations made by subordinate employees of the New Jersey Department of Labor and Workforce Development (“Department”) to support a “good faith” exemption from New Jersey’s overtime pay mandates, instead finding such determinations must come from either the Commissioner of the Department or the Director of the Division of Wage and Hour Bureau. In Elmer Branch v. Cream-O-Land Dairy, the plaintiff Elmer Branch, a truck driver, filed a putative class action lawsuit against his employer Cream-O-Land Dairy (“Cream-O-Land” or “the defendant”) for payment of overtime wages under the New Jersey Wage and Hour Law (WHL). The plaintiff claimed that he, along with other “similarly situated truck drivers” employed by the defendant, were eligible for overtime pay at 1½ times their regular hourly wage. Cream-O-Land asserted two principal arguments in defense of the lawsuit: (1) it is exempt from the overtime requirements of the WHL because it is a “trucking industry” employer (and thus required to pay employees only 1½ times the minimum wage as opposed to 1½ times the employees’ regular rate of pay); and (2) it relied in “good faith” on certain prior determinations made by the Department finding that Cream-O-Land qualified as a “trucking industry employer” under the WHL and, therefore,...

Amendments to Pennsylvania’s Unemployment Compensation Act Bring New Notice Obligations and Temporary Relief for COVID-19 Related Unemployment Benefit Charges for Employers

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Posted in Employee Benefits

On May 18, 2020

In connection with the continuing challenges arising from COVID-19, Pennsylvania Governor Tom Wolf recently signed into law amendments to Pennsylvania’s Unemployment Compensation Law, which are included in Act 9 of 2020 (“the Act”). The Act imposes new notice obligations on employers and includes “emergency provisions” that relax eligibility and access requirements for individuals filing COVID-19 related unemployment benefit claims and, among other things, provide relief to employers for charges incurred under certain circumstances. Some key provisions of the Act are discussed more fully below. New Notice Requirements The Act adds a new section (206.1) to Pennsylvania’s Unemployment Compensation Law, requiring employers to now provide separating employees with notice about the availability of unemployment compensation, regardless of whether the employer is liable for payment of contributions to the state’s unemployment compensation system. Although the Act is silent about the required form of notice, it must include the following information: Availability of unemployment compensation benefits to workers who are unemployed and qualify for benefits; An employee’s ability to file an unemployment compensation claim in the first week that employment stops or work hours are reduced; Availability of assistance and information about unemployment compensation claims on the Pennsylvania Department of Labor and Industries, Office of Unemployment Compensation’s website – www.uc.pa.gov – or at the department’s toll-free number, which...

Pennsylvania Issues New Executive Order Mandating Additional COVID-19 Disease Control Measures

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Posted in Employee Benefits

On April 24, 2020

On April 15, 2020, the Secretary of the Pennsylvania Department of Health issued an order aiming to blunt the continued and expansive spread of COVID-19 throughout Pennsylvania (“Order”). The Order, which took effect on April 19, 2020, requires additional disease control measures to further protect workers and customers of any life-sustaining business (“Business”) that has remained open during the COVID-19 disaster emergency. The original list of Businesses can be found here, and includes companies such as healthcare service providers; restaurants offering carry-out, delivery, or drive-through services; food, medical equipment, and chemical manufacturers; and utility and telecommunication companies, among others. The Order requires any such Business, other than a healthcare provider, to implement certain social distancing, mitigation, and cleaning protocols. These measures are in addition to those included in Pennsylvania’s April 6, 2020 building safety measures executive order, which requires covered businesses to clean and disinfect high-touch areas in accordance with CDC guidelines in spaces accessible to customers, tenants, or other individuals, and maintain pre-existing cleaning protocols established in the facility for all other areas of the building, ensure the facility has a sufficient number of employees to perform the required cleaning protocols effectively and in a manner ensuring the safety of occupants and workers, and make sure that the facility has a sufficient number of...

New Jersey Enacts and Expands Laws Providing Employees With Enhanced Benefits and Protections Resulting From COVID-19

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Posted in Family Leave

On March 30, 2020

New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy has recently signed into law two important bills – one (AB 3848) providing job protection to certain employees impacted by COVID-19 (“the COVID-19 Act” or “Act”), and the other (S2304) expanding the scope of the New Jersey Earned Sick Leave Law (ESLL), the New Jersey Family Leave Act (FLA), and the New Jersey Temporary Disability Law (“TDBL”). The Act, along with the amendments to the existing laws referenced above, are discussed below and are intended to increase protection and benefits to employees as a result of COVID-19. Job Protection for Certain Employees Who Take Time Off Due to Infectious Disease Under the COVID-19 Act, during the Public Health Emergency and State of Emergency declared by Governor Murphy concerning the coronavirus, employers are prohibited from terminating or refusing to reinstate an employee who requests or takes time off from work, for a specified time period, at the recommendation of a licensed New Jersey medical professional because the employee has or is likely to have an infectious disease that could infect others in the employee’s workplace. Upon the employee’s return from time off, he or she must be reinstated to the same position held when leave began, with no reduction in seniority, status, employment benefits, pay, or other terms and conditions of...

New Jersey Department of Labor Issues Final Regulations for Earned Sick Leave Law

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Posted in Employee Benefits

On February 7, 2020

The New Jersey Earned Sick Leave Law (“ESLL”), which became effective in October 2018, requires New Jersey employers, among other things, to provide their employees with one hour of sick leave for every 30 hours worked, with a maximum of 40 hours annual paid sick leave. Such leave may be used for an employee to care for their own or a family member’s physical or mental health or injury; address domestic or sexual violence against themselves or a family member; attend a child’s school-related meeting, conference or event; or take care of their children when school or child care is closed due to an epidemic or public health emergency. The New Jersey Department of Labor and Workforce Development (“NJDOL” or “Department”) recently issued final regulations for the ESLL (“final regulations” or “regulations”), ending more than a year of waiting for employers, from the time the NJDOL issued proposed ESLL rules (“proposed rules”), for which the 60-day comment period ended in December 2018. The regulations can be found here. The final regulations do not contain much in the way of substantive changes as compared to the proposed rules, but include extensive responses to more than 100 public comments, and provide guidance to employers attempting to navigate the ESLL’s complicated requirements. Some highlights of the regulations are...

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