Author: Christine Day

Research by a University of Iowa accounting professor indicates that companies that are subject to whistleblower investigations experience a “sharp and lasting drop in financial wrongdoing.” The report, by Assistant Professor Jaron H. Wilde, is called “The Deterrent Effect of Employee Whistleblowing on Firms’ Financial Misreporting and Tax Aggressiveness.” It’s scheduled to be published in The […]

On December 7, 2016, Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan announced that Jimmy John’s Enterprises LLC and Jimmy John’s Franchise LLC had agreed to stop using highly restrictive noncompete agreements and to notify former and current employees that the agreements would not be enforced. Noncompete agreements generally prohibit employees from working for a competitor or in […]

On Friday, November 25, 2016, the San Francisco Municipal Transit Agency (SFMTA) was the victim of a ransomware attack. Ransomware is malicious software that infiltrates computer systems or networks and uses tools like encryption to hold data “hostage” until the victim pays a ransom, which is frequently payment in Bitcoin. According to the San Francisco Examiner, […]

A federal district court judge in Pennsylvania wasn’t impressed by a manufacturer’s claims that it was a “blue collar workplace” and that in such environments, where foul language or joking among coworkers is common, it’s hard for an employee to prove that her work environment was hostile. “That a particular workplace is considered ‘blue collar’—whatever that is […]

On November 22, 2016, a federal judge decided that a new overtime rule issued by the US Department of Labor (DOL) in May 2016 will not take effect as planned on December 1, 2016. Employees must make a certain salary (and perform qualified duties) in order to be exempt from the minimum wage and overtime […]

In May 2016 the US Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) enacted a final rule to improve tracking of workplace injuries and illnesses. The rule requires employers to electronically submit records of workplace injuries and illnesses. It also includes provisions that are meant to encourage employees to report such injuries and illnesses and that prohibit […]

In the November 2016 election, voters in several states approved medical and recreational marijuana laws. Arizona was the only state to reject a marijuana initiative. Recreational marijuana is now legal in 8 states and the District of Columbia, while medical marijuana is legal in 28 states and the District of Columbia. But this doesn’t mean […]

In October 2016 the US Department of Labor (DOL) launched a beta prototype of a new website called worker.gov, which is designed to help workers understand their rights under federal worker protection statutes. The website also allows workers to file complaints with the proper federal agency. The DOL says that: This new website doesn’t ask […]

In a 2015 BNA Antitrust & Trade Regulation Report article called Human Resources: The Next Antitrust Frontier?, Susanna P. Torpey and Ryan D. Fahey discussed the “emerging area of antitrust exposure that is forcing practitioners and in-house counsel in the know to reevaluate new pockets of antitrust risk arising not from the sales force, but […]

On August 1, 2016, Massachusetts passed a law to establish pay equity by forbidding employers from discriminating on the basis of gender when employees do comparable work. In that respect, the Massachusetts law is similar to Maryland’s 2016 Equal Pay for Equal Work Act and to the California Fair Pay Act enacted in 2015. But […]