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On July 9, 2021, President Joe Biden signed a sweeping Executive Order on “Promoting Competition in the American Economy”.  The Executive Order includes 72 initiatives by more than a dozen federal agencies to address perceived competition problems across the U.S. economy, and signals increased enforcement of the antitrust laws in multiple industries (including agriculture, finance,…

This week, Governor Wolf signed House Bill 1024, allowing certain revisions to the Pennsylvania Medical Marijuana Act (the “Act”).  While the revisions do not specifically implicate the workplace, and do not provide guidance to employers on navigating medical marijuana use by employees, employers should, nonetheless, pay attention.

What changed?

House Bill 1024 makes permanent three…

As legitimate unemployment compensation claims have spiked in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, so too have fraudulent ones.  Just yesterday, Maryland’s Department of Labor announced that the state has detected over 508,000 new, potentially fraudulent unemployment claims since May 1, 2021.  Last year, a $650million unemployment fraud scheme rocked Washington state.  In April 2021,…

McNees attorney Errin McCaulley is a co-author of this post

On June 10, 2021, OSHA released a revised version of its Protecting Workers: Guidance on Mitigating and Preventing the Spread of COVID-19 in the Workplace (“Workplace Guidance”).  This Guidance was issued simultaneously with the Emergency Temporary Standard, which is applicable only in the healthcare industry. …

On May 28, 2021, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission issued updated informal guidance on COVID-19 and the federal employment laws that it enforces.  This round of guidance focused on COVID-19 vaccines and their intersection with the workplace.  With the CDC recently exempting fully vaccinated individuals from masking requirements (except where otherwise required by other federal,…

On May 5, 2021, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo signed A2681B/S1034—the Health and Essential Rights Act (“HERO Act” or “Act”), which requires employers to enact an airborne infectious disease exposure prevention standard for all work sites and to create a workplace safety committee.

Under the Act, the NY Department of Labor, in consultation with the…

On May 10, 2021 the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) announced that Section 1557 of the Affordable Care Act and Title IX’s prohibitions on discrimination based on sex include discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity.  “Research shows that one quarter of LGBTQ people who faced discrimination postponed or…