Employment & The Law - Spring 2012
Breaking News: New Hazard Communication Standard
On March 20, 2012, the Department of Labor announced a final rule updating the Occupational Safety and Health Administration ("OSHA") Hazard Communication Standard ("HCS"), which is used to classify and identify chemicals according to their health and physical hazards. [Read more →]
Overtime Update: New Cases May Provide Clarity on Key Wage and Hour Issues
As we mentioned in our last newsletter, even the most diligent employers are finding it difficult to keep track of emerging wage and hour issues. Your inbox is likely bombarded by wage and hour updates, decisions, articles, alerts, and reminders. We hope that our Overtime Update feature provides a helpful way for you to identify the most important new wage and hour issues that are currently affecting employers. In this edition, we identify three topics that have recently emerged as need-to-know issues. [Read more →]
To Inquire, or Not to Inquire – The Risks of Asking Job Applicants About Prior Arrests and Convictions
Your company takes great pride in hiring an efficient, productive, and safe workforce. In an effort to ensure the safety of your employees and customers, your initial application form requires all job applicants to check a box "yes"
or "no" to the following question: "Have you ever been convicted of a crime?" When reviewing a stack of applications, you notice that 10 applicants checked "yes" to this question. Because you still have
hundreds of applications to choose from, you remove those applicants from consideration based on their prior conviction history. Has your company just violated the law?
[Read more →]
Requesting Facebook Login Information a Risky Choice for Employers
By now you have likely heard that some companies are demanding that applicants provide access to their Facebook pages during employee interviews. The rationale is that for the safety and security of their employees and customers, it is important to know whether potential employees (for example) participate in gang activity, engage in risky behavior, are members of racist or sexist groups, or simply use poor judgment. Wouldn’t it make hiring so much simpler if we could just get a glimpse into these individuals’ private lives and determine who they really are? Not exactly. [Read more →]
Risky Business: The Dangers of Overbroad Confidentiality Agreements
A confidentiality or non-disclosure agreement (NDA) is a contract that requires an employee to protect trade secrets and other confidential information provided to an employee during his or her employment. An NDA restricts disclosure both during employment and for a time after the employment relationships ends. NDAs are particularly valuable in protecting information which may not meet all of the requirements of a trade secret under applicable law, but which the employer nevertheless has a legitimate interest in protecting. Like other post-employment restrictions such as non-competition or non-solicitation agreements, NDAs must be tailored to protect the reasonable interests of the employer and may not be enforced if they are overbroad. But, while NDAs can provide employers with an extra layer of protection above and beyond trade secret statutes, they have their limits. [Read more →]
Brinker Opinion Provides Important Guidance, Leaves Questions, Regarding Meal and Rest Periods in California
On April 12, 2012, the California Supreme Court issued its long-anticipated opinion in Brinker Restaurant Corporation et al. v. Superior Court (Hornbaum) (Case No. S166350), which provides some clarification of California’s requirements for employee meal and rest periods. This decision is not only critical for pending and future wage and hour class action cases, but presents an important opportunity for California employers to review, analyze, and, if necessary, revise their meal and rest period policies. [Read more →]
Severance Agreements for Employees Over 40: Understanding the Older Workers Benefit Protection Act
When drafting a severance offer or release agreement, one of the first questions that legal counsel or human resources asks is, "is the employee over 40?" But why does the employee’s age matter in the context of a release? This article summarizes the extra protections provided to employees age 40 and over, and outlines why one-size-fits-all severance and release agreements just don’t work. [Read more →]
On the Campaign Trail, Partisan Bills Abound: Both Parties Promise Raises to Workers’ Wages
Since our last update, most labor and employment legislation has seen little or no progression. We expect that this trend will continue until the 2012 presidential and congressional elections have been decided. While Congress turns to the elections, two bills have been introduced since the last update – one by Democrats, and the other by Republicans – that are of interest to employers. While decidedly partisan in focus, these bills promise workers in America the same thing: a raise. [Read more →]
Broaden Your Perspective with Troutman Sanders Blogs
This past March we successfully launched our HR Law Matters blog at, which focuses on labor and employment laws covering HR best practices, creative strategies, and unique ideas on all human resources matters. Let us take this opportunity to introduce you to a few of our firm’s other blogs that may be of interest to employers:
The Information Intersection blog, with contributions from our own Christina Bost Seaton (among other attorneys in our Information Management and Electronic Discovery & Data Management practices), connects the legal issues arising from considerations of privacy, data security, information technology, outsourcing, e-commerce, the Internet and social media, cloud computing, information management, and e-discovery. It’s a resource where you can get a better sense of various moving pieces, and how they intersect – and sometimes collide – with each other. The goal is to help our clients and friends think about these issues in the broader context of doing business.
The CFPB Report, penned by attorneys in our Attorneys General, Financial Services Litigation, and Financial Institutions practice areas, focuses on how the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau will regulate consumer financial products and services in compliance with federal law, which is of critical importance to banks, mortgage lenders and loan servicers, loan acquirers, check cashers, payment processors, providers of credit counseling, credit card issuers, debt buyers and collectors, and consumer and credit reporting services, among others. One of these attorneys, David Anthony, teamed with us this month on our article addressing criminal background checks.
Troutman Sanders LLP has many more blogs that may be of interest to you. Pick your own poison at our blog homepage.
© TROUTMAN SANDERS LLP. ADVERTISING MATERIAL. These materials are to inform you of developments that may affect your business and are not to be considered legal advice, nor do they create a lawyer-client relationship. Information on previous case results does not guarantee a similar future result.