State Employment Law Articles

On May 11, 2026, Governor Ned Lamont signed into law Substitute House Bill No. 5003, Public Act No. 26-12 , enacting comprehensive changes to the workplace that will impact Connecticut employers. This article addresses the most notable changes contained within Public Act No. 26-12’s expansive provis

On May 20, 2026, the Chicago City Council moved to delay a planned phaseout of the tip credit for tipped workers under Chicago’s One Fair Wage ordinance by two years.

Colorado’s newly rewritten artificial intelligence (AI) law is meaningfully narrower than the 2024 law it replaces, but it also reaches a population the Colorado Privacy Act largely leaves outside its scope: employees and job applicants.

New high school curriculum initiatives, such as the Texas Education Agency’s recently adopted Occupational Safety and Compliance Lab course , are bringing safety and health concepts into teenagers’ classrooms—and the implications are significant for students, employers, and communities alike.

Last week, Virginia Governor Abigail Spanberger signed legislation dramatically expanding Virginia’s paid sick leave law to cover nearly all Virginia employees. If you have employees in Virginia, you can learn more about the new law here. Continue Reading

On May 22, 2026, Governor Ron DeSantis signed House Bill (HB) 1407 , which revises the procedural framework governing the commencement of civil actions and administrative remedies under the Florida Civil Rights Act (FCRA).

As summer hiring ramps up and many minors seek seasonal work, employers may want to be aware that Colorado, Indiana, New Jersey, and New York have recently updated their child labor laws, affecting employers’ compliance obligations in those states for hiring workers under the age of eighteen.

As employers across California navigate an increasingly complex regulatory landscape, one issue keeps surfacing in California Division of Occupational Safety and Health (Cal/OSHA) enforcement actions: what happens when the division cites a company that no longer exists?

Colorado lawmakers have completed their hotly anticipated rewriting of the state’s landmark artificial intelligence (AI) law. While the new law shifts compliance from a risk-based to a transparency-based approach, it maintains significant notice-and-disclosure obligations for employers (referred to

As California heats up, employers should revisit Cal/OSHA’s heat illness prevention requirements, which continue to apply to both outdoor and indoor workplaces in 2026. Federal OSHA, by comparison, still has not finalized a nationwide heat-specific standard. Read more here: Beat the Heat: Reminders

On April 14, 2026, Nebraska Governor Jim Pillen signed into law a new state-level Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification (WARN) Act, which requires employers with one hundred or more employees to provide ninety-day advance notice of mass layoffs and covered business closings.

Quick Hits Under House Bill (HB) 1034, total annual earnings includes wages, salary, commissions, nondiscretionary bonuses, and other forms of remuneration. Annualized compensation for an hourly employee must be calculated by multiplying the employee’s hourly rate by forty and multiplying the produc

Lots of Love: Polyamorous and Nontraditional Family Structures Gain Anti-Discrimination Protections in Cities in California, Oregon, and Washington Cities along the U.S. tgelbman@littler.com Wed, 05/13/2026 - 14:07

Thumb on the Scale: Tennessee Enacts New Reasonableness Presumptions for Noncompete Agreements While Outlawing Covenants for Lower-Wage Earners Tennessee Governor Bill Lee signed House Bill 1034 on May 7, 2026, enacting Tennessee’s first noncompete law outside the healthcare industry. The law become

Bloomington, Minnesota Repeals Paid Sick and Safe Time Ordinance Due to State Law. Will Remaining Cities Follow Suit? On April 27, 2026, Bloomington, Minnesota repealed its Earned Sick and Safe Time Ordinance. As explained in the corresponding meeting agenda packet , “the primary purpose of Blooming

On May 5, 2026, the California Court of Appeal, First Appellate District, affirmed the denial of an employer’s motion to compel arbitration in a wage-and-hour class action brought by a former employee. The employer sought to enforce an arbitration agreement that the former employee had signed with a

On May 7, 2026, Tennessee Governor Bill Lee signed into law a bill that bans the use of noncompete agreements for workers who make less than $70,000 per year.

A new law in Florida will prevent local governments from funding or promoting diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives and require that contractors and grant recipients certify that public funds will not be used for prohibited DEI endeavors.

Joining approximately twenty-five other state or local jurisdictions, two states—Maine and Virginia—have enacted new pay transparency requirements slated to take effect in July 2026. Virginia’s House Bill (HB) 636 / Senate Bill (SB) 215 takes effect on July 1, 2026, and Maine’s Legislative Document

On April 13, 2026, Maine Governor Janet Mills signed a law that updates the state’s substance use testing rules and further limits employers’ entitlement to conduct testing on employees and job applicants.