Workforce Bulletin

Earlier this summer, we reported on ground-breaking legislation in New Jersey that requires hotels with more than 100 guest rooms to supply hotel employees assigned to work in a guest room alone with a free panic button device and to adhere to a specific protocol upon activation of a panic button device by a hotel employee.  In what may signal the start of a national trend, Illinois just became the second state to pass similar legislation targeting not only hotels but also casinos located within its jurisdiction.

Under the newly created Hotel and Casino Employee Safety Act (Article 5 of ...

On March 6, 2019, the 20-year business partnership between celebrity chef Mario Batali and the Bastianich family of restaurateurs, Batali & Bastianich Hospitality Group, was formally dissolved following allegations by several women more than a year ago that he sexually assaulted and harassed them at his restaurants years earlier. Tanya Bastianich Manueli and her brother Joe Bastianich have bought all of Mr. Batali’s shares in the restaurants. As a result, Mr. Batali has been fully divested and will no longer profit from his former restaurant group, and his name already has been ...

In the New Year, two states – New Jersey and Illinois – have proposed legislation requiring restaurants to adopt a sexual harassment training policy and provide anti-sexual harassment training to employees.  While it remains to be seen whether these bills will become law, attempts to target and reform working conditions in the hospitality industry are nonetheless noteworthy, particularly given that unlike New York and California, neither New Jersey nor Illinois have enacted broad legislation requiring private sector employers, regardless of occupation, to provide sexual ...