The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) announced on Friday that it has delayed the effective date for using the new Form I-9 until April 3, 2009. As discussed in an earlier post, the new I-9 was scheduled to be used beginning today. Employers who use the new I-9 form before April 3, 2009, are […]
President Obama signed the Ledbetter Fair Pay Act this morning. Prior to the passage of the Act, an employee was required to sue within 180 days of the day that an employer decided to pay an employee a smaller wage or salary for a discriminatory reason. The problem with this prior interpretation of the law […]
The Utah legislature is now considering a bill that proposes to include a person’s sexual orientation and gender identity as factors that cannot be considered by employers in making employment decisions. Besides prohibiting most employers in the state from discriminating on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identify, House Bill 267, Antidiscrimination Amendments, proposes […]
As has been discussed here on January 12th and 19th, the Utah Legislature is considering several bills that may have an impact on Utah employers and employees. Here are additional bills: House Legislation: House Bill 117, Mechanical Contractor Licensing Provisions. This bill proposes to require the licensing of heating, venting, and air conditioning (HVAC) mechanical […]
The Employment Standards Administration Wage and Hour Division recently issued a new opinion letter in which it decided that an employer need not compensate an on-call employee who was required while on-call to be reachable at all times, abstain from alcohol or other substances, and report to work within one hour of notice to return. […]
The United States Supreme Court ruled in Crawford v. Metropolitan Government that a local government employee who answered questions posed to her about a human resource employee’s alleged sexual harassment was protected from retaliation even when she did not file her own complaint about his behavior. The questions came during an internal investigation being conducted […]
The Utah Labor Commission has proposed rules to govern the process for the adjudication of discrimination claims filed by parties in the Utah Antidiscrimination and Labor Division and the Utah Occupational Safety and Health Division. The comment period for he proposed new rules for Discrimination claims and Utah Occupational Safety and Health claims ends on […]
In some circumstances, the law requires employees who refuse to join unions to pay service fees to the unions that represent their local collective bargaining unit. As one would guess, these laws often upset non-union employees who believe that their First Amendment rights of association and speech are being infringed. Consequently, there has been a […]
The Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act (WARN) requires certain employers to give 60 days advance notice of a mass lay off to its employees. WARN, however, does not require the notice in certain circumstances. The court having appellate jurisdiction over Utah, the Tenth Circuit, decided earlier this week in Gross v. Hale-Halsell Company, that […]
Beginning February 2, 2009, all employers will be required to use a new I-9 form that has been issued by the U.S Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS). The USCIS issued a press release explaining the change on December 12, 2008. The new I-9 form may only be used after February 2, 2009.
