Workforce Bulletin

The first of the year brought with it new pay transparency obligations for employers in several states, including Rhode Island, California, and Washington.  Halfway through the year, this type of legislation remains a focus for legislators from coast to coast, including in jurisdictions like Colorado, where similar laws are already on the books. While these proposed laws are all generally rooted in pay equity principles, their substantive differences and sheer volume raise serious questions for employers looking to recruit, hire, and retain talented employees across the country.

On February 21, 2023, the Seattle City Council passed a first of its kind ordinance that amends Seattle’s existing anti-discrimination laws to prohibit caste discrimination. The ordinance, CB 120511, prohibits employers from discriminating against individuals based on caste with respect to “hiring, tenure, promotion, terms, conditions, wages or privileges of employment, or with respect to any matter related to employment.” The amendment also bans discrimination based on caste with respect to public accommodations. Seattle employers should take note of the new amendment and update their policies to include caste as a protected category.

On January 1, 2023, Washington joined the growing list of states requiring pay transparency in job postings. Amendments (the “Amendments”) to the Washington State Equal Pay and Opportunities Act (the “EPOA”) require covered employers to disclose pay range, benefits, and other compensation in job postings. The Washington Department of Labor and Industries issued an administrative policy (the “Guidance”) to provide guidance regarding the broadened disclosure requirements.

In recent years, wage discrimination has been a hot topic and with it, the question of whether employers may rely on a worker’s salary history to justify a pay disparity between male and female employees. In a 2018 case involving the federal Equal Pay Act (“EPA”), Rizo v. Yovino, (about which we wrote here), the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit (“Ninth Circuit”) ruled that employers may not rely on prior salary to excuse unequal pay. On petition, the Supreme Court vacated the decision and remanded the case on a technical ground (i.e., because the judge who ...

Washington State has begun implementing its new Paid Family & Medical Leave program (“PFML”). Other states, such as New Jersey, New York, and Rhode Island already have paid family and medical leave programs in place, and now Washington, Massachusetts and Washington, D.C. are set to join them over the next few years. Although the benefits portion of Washington’s program does not kick in until 2020, employers’ reporting and remitting of premiums for Quarters 1 and 2 are due between July 1 and July 31, 2019.

The Washington Employment Security Department (“ESD”), which will ...

On April 25, a U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C. ruled that the EEOC must collect Component-2 wage/hours worked data from employers by September 30, 2019.  The Court also ordered EEOC to collect two pay years (2018 and either 2017 or 2019). If the EEOC choses 2017 it will also be due on September 30.  If it chooses 2019, that data will be due March 31, 2020. The EEOC has until May 3 to determine which additional year will be collected.

The bottom line is that employers who file EEO-1’s now have two deadlines:  May 31 for the traditional race/ethnicity and gender snapshot, and September 30 ...

In an attempt to reduce the gender wage gap, the Washington State Legislature passed HB 1696,(“the Bill”), legislation that will prevent all private employers in Washington State from inquiring into the salary history of prospective employees  or requiring that an applicant's prior wage or salary history meet certain criteria.  Additionally, the Bill mandates that, upon an applicant’s request, an employer with 15 or more employees must provide the applicant with certain details about the pay rate or salary range for the open position.

If, as expected, the measure is signed ...

Our colleague Tzvia Feiertag at Epstein Becker Green has a post on the Health Employment and Labor Blog that will be of interest to our readers in the financial services industry: “NJ Employers and Out-of-State Employers with NJ Residents Prepare: State Updates Website on Employer Reporting for New Jersey Health Insurance Mandate.”

Following is an excerpt:

As employers are wrapping up their reporting under the Affordable Care Act (“ACA”) for the 2018 tax year (filings of Forms 1094-B/C and 1095-C/B with the IRS are due by April 1, 2019, if filing electronically), they ...

In a stinging rebuke of the Trump Administration’s attempt to remove burdensome regulations on employers, Judge Tanya Chutkan, a District Court judge in the District of Columbia this week reinstated the EEO-1 “Part 2” wage data/hours worked reporting form for all employers who file annual EEO-1 demographic reports with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission ("EEOC") and the U.S. Department of Labor. (This includes all companies employing more than 100 people, or 50 people if they are a US federal contractor.)

This new data collection requirement, launched in 2016 by ...

Washington State is considering sweeping legislation (SB 5376) to govern the security and privacy of personal data similar to the requirements of the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (“GDPR”). Under the proposed legislation, Washington residents will gain comprehensive rights in their personal data. Residents will have the right, subject to certain exceptions, to request that data errors be corrected, to withdraw consent to continued processing and to deletion of their data. Residents may require an organization to confirm whether it is processing ...

On March 21, 2018, Washington Governor Jay Inslee signed bill SB 5996 (the “Law”), which prohibits employers from requiring as a condition of employment that employees sign a nondisclosure agreement preventing them from discussing workplace sexual harassment or sexual assault. The Law goes into effect on June 7, 2018.

In addition to sexual offenses in the workplace, the Law covers such incidents that occur at work-related events “coordinated by or through the employer,” or between employees, or between an employer and an employee off the employment premises. The new Law ...