Recent news

Latest items of recent news relevant to the United States as reported in our fortnightly newswire ‘Dernières nouvelles’.

USA: Covid ‘hate crimes’ against Asian Americans on rise

A major headache for employers is that discrimination is becoming a routine and everyday activity amongst many employees and also widening its scope to cover any group that is different from the dominantly defined “norm” …

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USA: Virginia expands disability discrimination protections

Employers with 6+ employees in Virginia must take on board the changed obligations imposed by House Bill 1848 …

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USA: New Virginia employment laws to prevent workplace discrimination based on a worker’s “military status”

House Bill 2161 replaces “military status” for “veterans” as the title of the protected category under Virginia‘s anti-discrimination legislation …

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USA: Virginia’s overtime wage law enacted

The majority of employers rely on the federal FLSA provisions to determine overtime pay provisions for non-exempt workers, but many States do have their own legislation …

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USA: Marijuana and the workplace

The legalisation of recreational marijuana use continues to grow across the country, potentially placing employers in States such as New York and New Jersey in a jam if they wish to ensure that residues of this drug are not present in the bloodstreams of employees during working hours – due to use whilst off duty …

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USA: Kentucky’s new ‘reentry’ law gives employers clearance to hire workers with criminal backgrounds

House Bill 497 has just been signed into law in Kentucky …

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USA: City Council Committee backs plan to protect Chicago workers who take time off to get COVID-19 vaccine

An ordinance has been passed by Chicago City Council protecting employees and contractors working for employers across the city from “adverse action” for taking time off to be vaccinated against COVID-19 …

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USA: Kaiser to pay $18.9 million to settle pay equity lawsuits

A Californian healthcare company has just settled two large class action lawsuits that claimed widescale discrimination and unequal pay on the grounds of race and ethnic origin …

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USA: Arizona joins other states in passing COVID-19 liability protection for businesses

Although the Arizona legislature has just followed a number of other States in introducing limits to civil liability exposure for any act in good faith “to protect others from injury, death, or loss resulting from the pandemic”, the coverage is not all that it at first appears …

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USA: Amazon to raise wages for half a million workers

The e-commerce company Amazon will raise salaries by between 0 …

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USA: DOL proposes extended delay of regulation increasing PERM and H-1B1 wage minimums

The rule for calculating the “prevailing wages” of certain immigrants and non-immigrant workers was due to be fundamentally changed by July this year …

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USA: Consumer prices increase 2.6% for the 12 months ending March 2021

We continue to monitor consumer price rises in anticipation of hyperinflation warning signs – especially in the USA …

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USA: SEC awards over $50 Million to joint whistleblowers

The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has awarded US$50M to two whistleblowers who alerted them to highly complex transactions that deprived thousands of investors of huge deposited sums …

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USA: North Carolina Court upholds 10-year restrictive covenant between employer and former employee

Restrictive covenants are now a common element in employment contracts and normally take the form of non-compete clauses covering periods of two to three years after an employee leaves a company …

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USA: Transgender youth treatment banned by Arkansas

Having lost the House, Senate and Presidency the GOP is now focussing its attention on state legislatures and this is gradually shaping a new national conservative agenda …

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