By David R. Bohm
Hat tip to my friend, Harold Kirtz, who is a senior litigator with the FTC:
It is important that we, and our employees, families and friends, be vigilant for various scams playing off coronavirus fears. For your information, click on the link below for a good summary from the FTC concerning various of these types of scams.
More than ever, it is important that we engage in safe internet practices.
Coronavirus Scams – What the FTC is Doing
Additional Resources:
COVID-19 Business Operations for Danna McKitrick
Coronavirus/COVID-19 Resource Center
Posted by Attorney David R. Bohm. Bohm is an experienced litigator working with health care, government, and business clients on employment, intellectual property, and complex contract issues. He is also skilled in alternative dispute resolution as a means to solve disagreements without litigation.
(c) tashatuvango www.fotosearch.com
03/24/20 11:57 AM
Business Law, COVID-19, Cybersecurity, Employment Law | Comments Off on Coronavirus Scams and the FTC |
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Coronavirus Scams and the FTC
By A. Thomas DeWoskin
Who would have thought we’d be in a situation like this? This is the 21st century, not the Middle Ages. The need for action is certain, but the need for panic is not. In fact, panic makes the matter worse for all concerned.
On the personal front, take care of yourself first. You need to have your wits about you at a time like this.
- Keep your mind busy with something other than worry. If you have a hobby, now is a good time to engage in it. Read a book; write a letter; call your mother. If working 80 hours a week has limited time with your kids, spend some time with them now. Just speak to them with open-ended questions. Find out what’s on their minds. Do something together.
- Help someone else – you’ll feel good about it.
- We’ve all heard the saying that every problem is an opportunity. One of the best ways to stay calm is to do something. You can’t sit and fret your way out of this.
On the business front, now is a great time to analyze your situation, both short- and long-term.
Continue reading »
03/24/20 8:38 AM
Bankruptcy, Business Law, COVID-19, Emerging Business, Employment Law | Comments Off on Thoughts for Business Owners Trying to Run a Business During a Pandemic |
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Thoughts for Business Owners Trying to Run a Business During a Pandemic
By Ruth Binger
UPDATED 3/7/2022
Review the links below for guidelines for reopening your business based on your location. If you have any questions, one of our employment attorneys can assist you.
Additional Resources:
COVID-19 ORDERS AND INFORMATION
State of Missouri
St. Louis Metro Area
St. Louis County
City of St. Louis
St. Charles County
Franklin County
Jefferson County
Lincoln County
Warren County
Other Missouri City and County Orders
Continue reading »
03/23/20 9:21 AM
Business Law, COVID-19, Emerging Business, Employment Law, Manufacturing and Distribution | Comments Off on Updated COVID-19 Information: St. Louis City, St. Louis County, Missouri, Outstate Missouri Areas, and Illinois |
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Updated COVID-19 Information: St. Louis City, St. Louis County, Missouri, Outstate Missouri Areas, and Illinois
By Employment Law Practice Group
UPDATED 9/21/2020
This chart is intended to provide a general overview of new obligations under the recently enacted Families First Coronavirus Response Act legislation. This new law is complex and subject to regulatory guidance and evolving interpretations. The employment law attorneys at Danna McKitrick, P.C. are available for up-to-date guidance before taking any action. For updated DOL regulations, see Department of Labor’s Updated Regulations for FFCRA effective 9/16/2020.
EMERGENCY FAMILY & MEDICAL LEAVE EXPANSION ACT
(FMLA EXPANSION)
|
Who must provide leave under the FMLA Expansion?
|
Employers with less than 500 employees
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Who is eligible to
use this leave?
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Employees (both full- and part-time) after 30 days from hiring, for the reasons listed below.
|
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Why may an employee use this leave?
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The employee is unable to work, either onsite or remotely, because the employee must care for a minor son or daughter whose school or place of care has been closed, or whose care provider is unavailable due to a public health emergency
|
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How long is the
leave?
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Up to 12 weeks
|
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What is the required pay during the leave?
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The first 10 days may be unpaid. An employee may choose to use accrued PTO for the first 10 days.
This is the employee’s choice and may not be mandated by the employer. After the first 10 days, the employee must receive pay based on the number of hours the employee would normally be scheduled to work. The pay must be two thirds of their regular rate of pay, not to exceed $200 per day or $10,000.00 total.
|
|
Is job protection
required for an employee who uses this leave?
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Yes, the employee must be able to return to the same or equivalent position.
|
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Are there exceptions to the requirement for job protection?
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Yes, job protection requirements may not apply to employers with less than 25 employees, if specific conditions are met and the position is eliminated due to changes
resulting from the public health emergency. In this circumstance, an employee must be placed on a re-hire list for one year.
|
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Are any employers with less than 500 employees exempt from the new FMLA expansion?
|
Possibly. The Secretary of Labor may choose to exempt small businesses with less than 50 employees if following the requirements would jeopardize the viability of the business.
Note that the Secretary of labor has NOT made this exemption as of the time
of this writing.
Employers of health care providers or emergency responders may exclude such an employee from the benefits of this Act. The regular FMLA definition of health care provider is limited and this exclusion should be applied cautiously.
|
|
When is the FMLA Expansion in effect?
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April 1, 2020 through December 31, 2020
|
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How will my
business recover the cost of this leave?
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With a refundable tax credit equal to 100% of the qualified paid wages required under this Act.
|
EMERGENCY PAID SICK LEAVE ACT
Continue reading »
03/20/20 4:04 PM
Business Law, COVID-19, Employment Law | Comments (4) |
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An Employer’s Guide to Paid Leave Under the Families First Coronavirus Response Act
By Ruth Binger
No one knows how long the COVID-19 Pandemic will last.
The predictions are all over the place, from 6 weeks to 4-6 months. Last
week, businesses instituted a hiring freeze. This week businesses are looking
at terminating their entire workforce in some cases and shutting down or taking
other measures.
According to Moody’s
Analytics, over 50% of the 153 million jobs in the economy are at high or
moderate risk of being lost. (In perspective, there were 800,000+ jobs
lost in March 2009 during the Great Recession). According to Mark Zandi,
chief economist at Moody’s Analytics, “…as
many as 10 million of those workers could see some impact to their paychecks —
either layoffs, furloughs, fewer hours or wage cuts.”
What are your company’s
payroll options when your orders disappear or are substantially reduced?
As flight director Gene Kranz says in Apollo 13, “Work
the problem, people.”
Continue reading »
03/17/20 3:54 PM
Business Law, COVID-19, Employment Law | Comments Off on Reducing Payroll and Avoiding Lawsuits During the Coronavirus/COVID-19 Pandemic |
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Reducing Payroll and Avoiding Lawsuits During the Coronavirus/COVID-19 Pandemic
By Corporate Law Practice Group
The state of Washington has a reputation as a worker-friendly state with some of the highest minimum wages in the country. So it’s no surprise that Washington Attorney General Robert Ferguson has been aggressively pursuing large corporate franchisors that include no-poach clauses in their franchise agreements. What is surprising is that he’s affecting franchise agreements across the U.S. (A “no-poach clause” is language in the franchise agreement that prevents a franchisee from hiring current and former employees of another franchisee or its franchisor.)
Businesses are always trying to gain competitive advantages by pushing the boundaries of regulations that promote fair competition. For example, many workers have non-compete clauses in their take-it-or-leave-it employment agreements. These clauses prevent a competitive labor market which creates a wage-fixing affect and triggers anti-trust laws. As a result, many courts have determined that non-compete clauses for employees without knowledge of trade secrets and with little ability to sway customers to follow them are unenforceable. Courts have refused to enforce non-competes for yoga instructors, camp counselors, and fast food employees.
Many franchisors include “no-poach” clauses in their franchise agreements. The terms restrict franchisees from poaching each other’s employees by allowing the franchisor to terminate the franchise of any franchisee who hires a worker employed by another franchisee or its franchisor. No-poach agreements and non-compete agreements both discourage employees from leaving their current employer. Continue reading »
10/10/19 3:50 PM
Business Law, Employment Law, Franchise Law | Comments Off on How the Washington Attorney General Is Changing Franchise Agreements Nationwide and What It May Mean For You |
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How the Washington Attorney General Is Changing Franchise Agreements Nationwide and What It May Mean For You
By David R. Bohm
The U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) has finally issued its long-awaited final rule updating its regulations defining exemptions for executive, administrative, and professional employees.
Some of the key take-aways from the new regulation are:
- The “standard salary level” to qualify for the exemption has been raised from $455 per week to $684 per week ($35,568 annually). Employees paid less than this amount after January 1, 2020 will not qualify for the exemption and will have to be paid overtime for working more than 40 hours per week.
- The total annual minimum compensation level for “highly compensated employees” (“HCE”) has been increased from $100,000 to $107,432 annually.
- Employers may use nondiscretionary bonuses and incentive pay (including commissions) that are paid at least annually to satisfy up to 10% of the standard salary level.
- There are special provisions for workers in U.S. territories and in the motion picture industry.
Continue reading »
09/25/19 9:11 AM
Employment Law | Comments Off on DOL Final Overtime Rule Published – Effective 1/1/20, Minimum Exemption Threshold Set at $35,568 Annually |
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DOL Final Overtime Rule Published – Effective 1/1/20, Minimum Exemption Threshold Set at $35,568 Annually
By Ruth Binger
Employers in Illinois will face a conundrum come January 1, 2020. Illinois legislature recently passed some of the most expansive marijuana laws that the United States has seen to date. The Cannabis Regulation and Tax Act (the “Act”) legalizes marijuana, making it a “lawful product” under the Illinois Right to Privacy in the Workplace Act which prohibits discrimination against employees for using lawful products. It raises the question of when disciplining an employee for marijuana use is acceptable compared to when the discipline may cross the line into prohibited discrimination.
The Act explicitly grants employers the right to maintain a drug-free workplace. Section 10-50 states in part:
- Employers may adopt reasonable zero tolerance or drug free workplace policies (the Act allows employers to define the extent of the “workplace” while providing guidelines of what shall standardly be considered part of the workplace).
- Employers are not required to allow an employee to use marijuana at work or while on call (the Act defines “on call” as when an employee is scheduled with at least 24 hours’ notice to be on standby or otherwise responsible for performing work-related tasks).
- Employers may adopt employment policies concerning drug testing, smoking, consumption, storage, or use of cannabis in the workplace or while on call. These employment policies may not be applied in a way that discriminates against employees for their use of marijuana outside the workplace.
- Employers may discipline their employees for using marijuana at work, possessing marijuana at work, or being under the influence of marijuana at work.
Continue reading »
08/26/19 11:23 AM
Business Law, Employment Law | Comments Off on To Discipline or Not to Discipline: What to Do With Illinois’ New Pot Law? |
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To Discipline or Not to Discipline: What to Do With Illinois’ New Pot Law?
By Katherine M. Flett
Equal Pay Day was celebrated this month on April 2, 2019. This date symbolizes how far into the year women must work to earn what men earned in the previous year. Thankfully, this date is not stationary. In fact, the date occurs seventeen days earlier than it did in 2005. While there is a lot to celebrate with that achievement, there is still a long way to go to completely close the gender wage gap.
In fact, the Supreme Court recently faced the opportunity to potentially close this wage gap even further when it granted cert to Rizo v. Yovino. See Katherine Flett’s blog post titled “Salaries Speak Louder than Words” for more discussion on the case. In Rizo, the Ninth Circuit sitting en banc found that the use of salary history to establish a starting salary violated the Equal Pay Act, as it perpetuated the discriminatory nature of women historically being underpaid in almost all sectors of employment. Thus, reliance on prior pay could no longer be considered as an affirmative defense under the Act’s fourth catchall exception, “any other factor other than sex.” Continue reading »
04/16/19 3:05 PM
Business Law, Emerging Business, Employment Law, Litigation, Manufacturing and Distribution, Restaurants & Entertainment | Comments Off on UPDATE: Salaries Speak Louder than Words |
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UPDATE: Salaries Speak Louder than Words
By Katherine M. Flett
It comes as no surprise that one year after the rise of the #MeToo movement, more women are not just speaking up about sexual harassment in the workplace, but they are taking action in the courthouse.
According to a recent Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) press release, the EEOC has already filed 66 harassment lawsuits in 2018, including 41 specifically citing sexual harassment – a 50 percent increase over 2017.
The EEOC also reported that it recovered almost $70 million for the victims of sexual harassment through administrative enforcement and litigation in 2018, up from $47.5 million in 2017. Interestingly, the overall number of discrimination charges are down, but charges for sexual harassment are up.
Victoria Lipnic, acting chair of the agency, commented during an interview with The Washington Post that she believe the increase is a result of the #MeToo movement, saying “This stuff happens everywhere. If you don’t address it in your workplace, you could find yourself on the receiving end of a federal enforcement [action].” Continue reading »
10/22/18 4:06 PM
Business Law, Employment Law | Comments Off on #MeToo Movement Spurs a 50 Percent Increase in EEOC Sexual Harassment Lawsuits |
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#MeToo Movement Spurs a 50 Percent Increase in EEOC Sexual Harassment Lawsuits
