By Michael A. Gamboli and Alicia J. Samolis As is tradition, the United States Supreme Court likes to save its blockbuster opinions until the end of the term. Such is the case with the June 28 ruling in Groff v. Dejoy, where the Court, while indicating that it was merely “clarifying” the existing legal standard, may have...
By Michael A. Gamboli and Alicia J. Samolis The new Federal Pregnant Workers Fairness Act (“PWFA”), effective June 27, 2023, purports to expand current federal protections by requiring certain employers to provide “reasonable accommodations” to a worker’s known limitations related to pregnancy, childbirth, or related medical conditions, unless the accommodation will cause the employer an...
By Michael A. Gamboli and Alicia J. Samolis Mental health issues in the workplace are at an all-time high. And with those issues come a slew of accommodation requests ranging from continued work from home to removal of stressful job duties to not appearing on camera during video calls. While the ADA accommodation process is exploited by...
On February 21, 2023, the National Labor Relations Board (“Board”) ruled that an employer violated its employees’ rights under federal law by offering severance agreements that included standard confidentiality and non-disparagement provisions. By way of background, Section 7 of the National Labor Relations Act (“NLRA”) protects the rights of non-management employees to engage in “concerted...
We have previously provided information on the new Rhode Island Pay Equity law, which goes into effect on January 1, 2023, available here: RIDLT Proposes Regulations and Issues Compliance Guidance for the New Pay Equity Law and here: Rhode Island’s New Pay Equity Law Changes How Employers Must Compensate Their Workforce. Since our last alert, the Department of...
By Alicia J. Samolis and Michael A. Gamboli With the new year just a handful of weeks away, employers should take note of one notable change to the Rhode Island Temporary Caregiver Insurance Program (“TCI”) taking effect in 2023. Beginning January 1, 2023, the maximum amount of time eligible employees may collect paid caregiver benefits...
By Alicia J. Samolis and Michael A. Gamboli On September 7, 2022, the National Labor Relations Board (“NLRB”) published a proposed rule (“Proposed Rule”) rescinding and replacing its current rule for determining joint-employer status under the National Labor Relations Act (“Act”). If adopted in its current form, the Proposed Rule would significantly expand the conditions under...
PSH Partner, and Employment & Labor Chair, Alicia J. Samolis was recently interviewed by Rhode Island Lawyers Weekly regarding a new First Circuit Case regarding associational discrimination under Title VII. First Circuit case Frith, et al. v. Whole Market, Inc., et al. arose when both black and non-black Whole Foods employees wore “black lives matter” masks to...
By Alicia Samolis and Michael Gamboli Pursuant to the new law legalizing recreational marijuana in Rhode Island, private employers are now prohibited from firing or taking other disciplinary action against an employee for recreational marijuana use outside the workplace. The narrow exceptions to the prohibition are as follows: Employees cannot be “under the influence” at work....
The Rhode Island Department of Labor and Training’s (“RIDLT”) much anticipated Proposed Regulations (“Regulations”) to the Rhode Island Pay Equity Law (the “Act”) have arrived. As we previously discussed, on July 6, 2021, Rhode Island Governor Daniel McKee signed the Act into law, which goes into effect on January 1, 2023. The crux of the Act prohibits an...
