State Employment Law Articles

The New York City Council passed a law on April 9, 2019 that will prohibit employers from conducting pre-employment drug testing for marijuana. The law is expected to be signed by the mayor and will take effect one year later. This law is the first of its kind in the United States.

The New York City Council has passed a prohibition on New York City employers requiring prospective employees to submit to testing for the presence of any tetrahydrocannabinols (THC), the active ingredient in marijuana.

Westchester County has released a model Notice of Employee Rights for the Westchester County Earned Sick Leave Law (“WCESLL”), effective April 10, 2019.

New York legislators passed into law the fiscal year 2020 $175.5-billion budget on April 1, 2019, fully funding state government for the next fiscal year. Among the provisions enacted are many that affect labor and employment in general and the energy, media, finance, health care, and other industri

On April 1, 2019, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo announced amendments to the state’s fiscal year 2020 budget, which includes, among other things, an amendment to its Election Law entitling employees in New York to three hours of paid time off to vote.

On April 9, 2019, the New York City Council passed a first-of-its-kind bill that prohibits pre-employment drug testing for the presence of marijuana or tetrahydrocannabinols. Mayor Bill de Blasio is expected to sign the bill into law, which would take effect one year after enactment.1 Significantly,

As we have previously reported,1 New York State and New York City both enacted legislation in 2018 that require New York employers to train their employees in workplace sexual harassment prevention. The state training legislation went into effect on October 9, 2018, and the city training legislation

Pending legislation could create new consumer privacy rights in Massachusetts. Earlier this year, Senator Cynthia Creem presented An Act Relative to Consumer Data Privacy in the Massachusetts Senate. This Consumer Privacy Bill, SD.341, combines key aspects of the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCP

Using GPS tracking information, cell phone call data, and other evidence to show that a man killed in an accident while driving home from work in a company truck wasn’t within the "course and scope" of the employment when he was killed, Goldberg Segalla partner Gregory S. Horner successfully defende

UPDATE: As discussed below, SB2134, as introduced, would have amended BIPA to delete the language that creates a private right of action and provide, instead, that violations resulting from the collection of biometric information by an employer for employment, human resources, fraud prevention, or s

On April 1, 2019, New Mexico Governor Lujan Grisham (D) signed Senate Bill (SB) 437, which amends the New Mexico Minimum Wage Act (MWA) by increasing the state minimum wage, increasing the minimum cash wage for tipped employees, and revising tip pool standards.

On March 29, 2019, the Massachusetts Executive Office of Labor and Workforce Development (EOLWD) released an updated version of the proposed Massachusetts Paid Family and Medical Leave (PFML) regulations, offering further clarification to one of the most generous paid family and medical leave progra

A revision to New York’s election law gives workers in the state up to three hours of paid time off to vote, Governor Andrew Cuomo highlighted in an announcement released on April 1, 2019, about New York’s enacted budget for fiscal year 2020.

Maryland has become the sixth state in the nation to adopt a minimum wage of $15.00 per hour. The state’s Democratic-controlled legislature overrode Republican Governor Larry Hogan’s veto on March 28, 2019. The current minimum wage in Maryland is $10.10 per hour.

A federal court struck down key portions of the new association health plan (AHP) regulations last week, just days before the fledgling rules for self-insured medical plans were slated to go into effect regarding newly-created AHPs.

The Massachusetts Department of Family and Medical Leave has published updated draft regulations implementing the Massachusetts Paid Family and Medical Leave Law (PFMLA) that, in many respects, substantially change or add to the initial draft regulations published in January 2019.

Maryland joined the parade of states raising the minimum wage to the magic number of $15 per hour when the state legislature voted to override the veto of Governor Larry Hogan on March 28, 2019. The minimum wage for employers with 15 or more employees will increase annually commencing January 1, 202

On March 26, 2019, proposed Assembly Bill 5, which would codify the California Supreme Court’s controversial Dynamex decision, was amended to exempt certain types of licensed workers. Just as noteworthy as the types of workers identified as exempt from the standard are the types of employees who wer

The California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA), passed in 2018 and taking effect January 1, 2020, is considered the most expansive state privacy law in the United States, and sparked a flurry of state privacy law legislative proposals, in particular in Washington state. This January, a group of state se

On March 14, 2019, the Puerto Rico Department of Labor and Human Resources (PR DOL) issued a press release announcing that in an effort to improve services and reduce public expenses, all employers will be required to submit their unemployment tax returns electronically starting April 1, 2019.