Democratic and Republican lawmakers have come together for the second time this year in an effort to increase transparency for incidents of sexual harassment and assault in the workplace. On September 15, 2022, the Senate Judiciary Committee, acting on a bipartisan basis, unanimously voted to advance the Speak Out Act...
This week's TikTok features RPJ Partner Nicole Page as she discusses a situation that may be all too familiar: a hostile work environment. Commonly used as a phrase referring to an unpleasant workplace, a hostile work environment is actually a legal term that is far more complex than most people...
The Federal Correctional Institute in Memphis, Tennessee, (“FCI-Memphis”) is one of 122 prisons run by the Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP). The inmates at FCI-Memphis are all males, but the institution has 49 female employees. Due to a chronic shortage of correctional officers, FCI-Memphis regularly “augments” (i.e. requires) females to...
RPJ Partner Helen D. (Heidi) Reavis will be speaking at the European American Chamber of Commerce event Workforce Challenges Pre- and Post-Pandemic, which will provide guidance on how to tackle the challenges companies and employees face in the new work environment. The in-person discussion provides insight on workplace safety policies,...
The Debate There have been two prevailing sets of arguments in the debate over implementing corporate board quotas (“CBQs”) in the US and internationally, aiming to counter gender inequality in the business penthouse. Rocket to the Top One set of reasoning argues that social norms and sexist ideologies are not...
In November 2021, the New York City Council passed a law regulating the use of artificial intelligence (AI) hiring tools by employers in the city, which will go into effect in January 2023; similar legislation has been proposed elsewhere in the United States and even at the federal level. These...
It took 37 years, but the New York Legislature amended the New York State Whistleblower Law, Labor Law 740, effective January 26, 2022. A flawed law that once offered little protection from retaliation for employees complaining about unlawful and unsafe conduct[1] is now one of the most robust in the...
This is the question raised by a recent lawsuit filed in the Northern District of New York by religious anti-abortion organizations against New York State. In the case, Compasscare et al. v. Cuomo et al., 19-cv-01409, the organizational plaintiffs argued that their First Amendment rights were violated by a New...
A pre-pandemic survey by the Economic Policy Institute in 2019 concluded that approximately one-half of all workplaces in the United States require at least some employees to enter into a non-compete agreement.[1] A lot has changed since, and a lot fewer people will be “on the beach” in times to...
During the past five years, the New York City Council has enacted a remarkably large number of amendments to the New York City Human Rights Laws that significantly expand employees’ protections against discrimination and harassment. The following is a listing of those amendments with a short description of the new...