Workforce Bulletin

On October 5, 2021, New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy signed A681 (“Law”) into law, strengthening the state’s protections against age discrimination by amending the Law Against Discrimination (LAD) to:

• delete the provision that had allowed employers not to hire or to promote employees over age 70 because of their age;
• delete the provision that permitted higher education institutions to require tenured employees to retire at 70 years old; and
• provide that an employee may seek all remedies permitted by the LAD if required to retire because of age, instead of being limited to ...

Although cannabis (marijuana) remains an illegal substance under federal law, companies in the cannabis industry are not exempt from complying with federal laws in general. A recent flurry of complaints filed in federal courts and with federal administrative agencies have highlighted the obligation of companies in the cannabis industry to comply with Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (“Title VII”), the Age Discrimination in Employment Act of 1967 (the “ADEA”), and the Americans with Disabilities Act (the “ADA”). These employers must also remain compliant ...

In this installment of Epstein Becker Green’s “Class Action Avoidance” webinar series, attorneys Lauri F. Rasnick and Frank C. Morris, Jr. address potential discrimination class actions related to office reopenings, the changing way in which we work, and the impact that the pandemic has had on individuals in protected classes.

As many employers think about reopening their offices and other workspaces, they should consider how they do so very carefully in order to avoid decisions that may adversely impact certain protected groups or lead to disparate decision making.

The Age Discrimination in Employment Act (“ADEA”) protects individuals who are at least 40 years of age from discrimination in the workplace. As such, the outcome of disparate-impact claims under the ADEA hinges, ordinarily, on whether or not an employer’s facially neutral-policy has a disparate impact on employees who are 40 years of age or older.  On January 10, 2017, the Third Circuit, in Karlo v. Pittsburgh Glass Works, LLC, 2017 BL 6064 (3d Cir. 2017), issued a precedential ruling, holding that disparate impact claims under the ADEA are not limited to comparisons of the ...

Our colleagues Brandon C. Ge, Steven M. Swirsky, Daniel J. Green, Lori A. Medley, and Valerie N. Butera (with Theresa E. Thompson, a Summer Associate) contributed to Epstein Becker Green’s recent issue of Take 5 newsletter. In this edition, we address important employment, labor, and workforce management issues in the technology, media, and telecommunications industry:

1. BYOD Programs: Privacy and Security Issues and Minimizing the Risk
2. High Tech and New Media: Organized Labor’s New Frontier
3. A Growing Role for the FTC in Regulating Workforce Management
4. Avoiding Age ...

by Michael A. Kalish and Adam Tomiak

Sens. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, and Patrick Leahy, D-Vt. recently introduced the Protecting Older Workers Against Discrimination Act, a bill intended to lessen the burden on age discrimination plaintiffs under the Age Discrimination in Employment Act (“ADEA”).  The bill seeks to return age discrimination plaintiffs to the standard the Senators believe they were subject to prior to the Supreme Court’s ruling in Gross v. FBL Financial Services, Inc., 557 U.S. __, 129 S. Ct. 2343 (2009).

In Gross, the Supreme Court held ...