employment law – Page 9 – Coronavirus (COVID-19)

April 23, 2020August 31, 2020 by Duane Morris

EEOC: Employers Can Screen for COVID-19

The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) updated its guidance on April 23 on the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) and coronavirus, explaining that employers may screen employees for COVID-19. Any mandatory medical test must be job-related and consistent with business necessity, the EEOC explained. […]

Questions about testing are “increasingly on the minds of employers,” said Christopher Durham, an attorney with Duane Morris in Philadelphia. […]

In an April 17 update to the same guidance, the EEOC clarified what constitutes an undue hardship preventing an employer from reasonably accommodating an individual with a disability in a pandemic. The agency stated that “it may be significantly more difficult in this pandemic to conduct a needs assessment or to acquire certain items, and delivery may be impacted, particularly for employees who may be telecommuting.” […]

The factors impacting what constitutes an undue hardship are going to be motivated by a vastly different operational and financial reality for some businesses than was the case prior to the pandemic, said Linda Hollinshead, an attorney with Duane Morris in Philadelphia.

To read the full text of the article, including further commentary by Mr. Durham and Ms. Hollinshead, please visit the SHRM website.

April 20, 2020September 4, 2020 by Duane Morris

COVID19 Planning – Ramping Up vs. Flipping a Switch: Getting Back to Business as Usual?

Duane Morris will host a webinar, “COVID19 Planning – Ramping Up vs. Flipping a Switch: Getting Back to Business as Usual?,” to be held on Tuesday, April 28, 2020 at 1:00 p.m. Eastern time. Duane Morris attorneys Meagan E. Garland, Teodora D. Purcell and Brooke B. Tabshouri will be the speakers. For more information and a link to register, please visit the firm website.

April 16, 2020September 3, 2020 by Duane Morris

New Jersey Expands Paid Leave Relief Available to Employees in the Wake of COVID-19 Pandemic

Governor Phil Murphy signed into law Senate Bill 2304 (S2304), expanding leave rights and benefits available to workers under New Jersey’s Earned Sick Leave Law, Family Leave Act, Temporary Disability Benefits Law and Family Leave Insurance Program for absences attributed to COVID-19. This law took effect immediately as of March 25, 2020.

To read the full text of this Duane Morris Alert, please visit the firm website.

April 14, 2020August 31, 2020 by Duane Morris

Reopening the Economy, Business Resiliency and Change

(This is the fifth in a series on the impacts of the coronavirus on employment and the workplace. Read part one, part two, part three and part four.)

On Friday, President Trump announced a task force on reopening the national economy. Also on Friday, several Governors, including California Governor Newsom, announced they were developing plans on state reopening processes and strategies. Continue reading “Reopening the Economy, Business Resiliency and Change”

April 9, 2020 by Duane Morris

San Francisco Enacts Emergency Ordinance: Public Health Emergency Leave

On April 7, 2020, the San Francisco Board of Supervisors unanimously approved an emergency ordinance requiring private employers with 500 or more employees to provide public health emergency leave consistent with the federal Families First Coronavirus Response Act (FFCRA). The Public Health Emergency Leave ordinance (PHELO) follows San Francisco Mayor London Breed’s proclamation of a state of emergency, state and local shelter-in-place orders and Bay Area school closures in response to the spread of the novel coronavirus COVID-19. The ordinance will go into effect as soon as it is signed by Mayor Breed.

To read the full text of this Duane Morris Alert, please visit the firm website.

April 9, 2020September 1, 2020 by Duane Morris

COVID-19 Employer Update: Implementing the FFCRA – What Employers Need to Know

This webinar, featuring Duane Morris partners Christopher Durham, Linda Hollinshead and Kathleen O’Malley, will be held on April 21, 2020, at 2:00 p.m. Eastern time.

In the midst of significant operational challenges stemming from the COVID-19 pandemic, employers are now managing employee requests for emergency sick and extended family leave under the Families First Coronavirus Response Act (“FFCRA”). Navigating the requirements of the FFCRA has been made more complex by the fact that the U.S. Department of Labor issued its Q&A Guidance in piecemeal fashion and the temporary rule implementing the FFCRA was issued April 1, 2020, the day the law went into effect. Employers have had little time to prepare for and contemplate their responsibilities under this new law and now must quickly get up to speed.

For more information or to register, please visit the Duane Morris Institute website.

April 9, 2020August 31, 2020 by Duane Morris

What Companies Are Looking for Before You Can Come Back to Work

At some point, the biggest American companies are going to tell their employees it’s time to leave home and return to work.

That decision will be fraught with risk without widespread testing for the COVID-19 virus. For some industries, such as Wall Street banks, ubiquitous testing is essential to bringing back their workforce to offices around the globe. For other industries, such as automakers, plans are already being made to open factories as early as May.

The tension between getting up and running as soon as possible versus taking chances with the health of employees is both a moral and a legal quandry. Employers have a relatively low legal risk, but a high reputational one, if they rush people back to the office, said Jonathan Segal, an employment attorney at law firm Duane Morris who specializes in human resources and minimizing companies’ legal and business risks.

To read more of Mr. Segal’s comments, please visit the firm website. To read the full text of the article, please visit the CNBC website.

April 8, 2020 by Duane Morris

What Employers Need To Know About Furloughs

During the coronavirus pandemic, employers are considering options that will enable them to match the size and structure of their workforce to their current business needs, while also retaining the flexibility to rapidly return the workforce to precrisis levels. One such option is placing employees on unpaid leave; namely, a furlough.

To read the full text of this article by Duane Morris partner Jonathan Wetchler (originally published in Law360), please visit the firm website.

April 7, 2020April 8, 2020 by Duane Morris

COVID-19 Updates for Singapore Employers: Safe Distancing, Cost Reduction and Government Support

As of 5 April 2020, Singapore has reported more than 1,300 cases and six deaths due to the COVID-19 pandemic. While Singapore is handling the COVID-19 pandemic better than most nations, the crisis continues to intensify at an increasing rate. As such, there is the continued need to be vigilant in enforcing social distancing and isolation measures.

Even as countries all over the world begin increasing such preventative health measures, the pandemic is also devastating the global economy, including Singapore. During times of economic downturn and uncertainty, controlling fixed costs such as labour becomes even more pressing for companies. Businesses in almost every sector have been impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic, and many are looking to cut costs during this period of crisis. While every business faces unique considerations, the following guidance aims to clarify issues relating to safe distancing practices at the workplace, cost-saving and business continuity measures, and the available government support during this health and economic crisis for Singaporean businesses.

To read the full text of this Duane Morris Alert, please visit the firm website.

April 6, 2020August 31, 2020 by Duane Morris

Countering Layoffs, Lessons From The First Week Of The CARES Act

(This is the fourth in a series on the impacts of the coronavirus on employment and the workplace. Read part one, part two and part three.)

Government and private sector businesses are moving so rapidly during the first week of the $2 trillion CARES Act, that we can already draw some lessons going forward. This is so especially for the $349 billion Paycheck Protection Program (PPP), the main vehicle rushing funds to small businesses to stem additional layoffs and permanent business closures.

To read the full text of this article by Duane Morris attorney Michael Bernick, with comments from Nanette Heide and Sandra Stoneman, please visit the firm website.