Episode 51 – Labor Law Update

Welcome to the TRSA podcast. Providing interviews and insights from the linen, uniform, and facility services industry. Most Americans might not realize it, but they benefit at least once per week from the cleanliness and safety of laundered, reusable linens, uniforms, towels, mats, and other products provided by various businesses and organizations. TRSA represents the companies that supply, launder, and maintain linens and uniforms. And in this podcast, we will bring the thought leaders of the industry to you.

 

I’m Jason Risley, back with another episode of the Linen Uniform and Facility Services podcast, interviews and insights by TRSA. TRSA just wrapped up a full schedule of in person events throughout the month of May, beginning with the New York State Legislative Conference in Albany and continuing with a pair of regional town halls in Chicago and Long Beach, California, plus several summits focused on important industry issues such as fleet vehicles, human resources, and safety. For future professional development events, visit our events calendar online at trsa.org. On today’s podcast, we focus on labor law issues with Joe Shelton, a partner in the Nashville office of Fisher Phillips. His practice focuses on the defense of employment discrimination claims in trial and appellate courts as well as litigation in the area of employee defection issues, such as trade secrets and restrictive covenants.

 

Joe also frequently advises employers on all aspects of state and federal employment laws, assists employers in drafting employment agreements, restrictive covenants, personnel policies and separation agreements, and conducts interactive and engaging training on topics such as employment law compliance and avoidance of harassment claims. Joe has spoken at several TRS events. Potential legislation could very well include what’s called a National Wage Theft Protection Act. In in the really 2 key components. Let me talk about the purpose behind it first.

 

The purpose behind this kind of statute is to help employees spotlight potential wage hour violations, and frankly, provide them a pathway to pursuing it. And that that’s just the, that’s just the that’s just the reality of it. Includes kinda 2 key components. There’s there’s notice that you would have to provide to employees at the time of hire, as well as if any pay changes happened throughout their employment. You know, no would notice in writing that you currently don’t have these obligations, and then there would be record keeping requirements that would be in play, that would that that you would have to comply with.

 

The next one is, an anticipated assault on arbitration agreements. We’ve been seeing that ever since the me too movement. And, you know, there’s just an increased awareness of arbitration because that movement, you know, it’s it’s it’s become an unpopular thing, by and large in terms of the media, and other things. It’s been, arbitration agreements have pretty staunch support in the Supreme Court in cases that have come before it, but there could be an end around with new new legislation, in that regard. I’m a fan of arbitration.

 

I don’t mind telling you. As a litigator, I’m a fan of arbitration, but, a lot of a lot of a lot of my clients have arbitration programs. So the next thing I’ll mention is pay equity. This was something that, president Biden was was pretty vocal about, gender discrimination and with respect to pay. We do expect some activity in that regard.

 

And and one of the things in that regard is the paycheck fairness act. It has just a renewed effort to get that passed. It it it basically, it mends the Equal Pay Act. And those of you that maybe have ever had an Equal Pay Act, very simply, it says you can’t pay, a woman less to do a job than as compared to a man, the same job. But it provides a a number of defenses.

 

The Equal Pay Act would basically restrict the defenses that are available for that kind of case. And and the most flexibility in terms of a defense for that kind of case was this quote, factor other than sex. It allows for currently allows for a decent amount of subjectivity in regards to things like performance and and that kind of thing. And that would change, and it would become more of an objective, a much more objective type analysis. The thing that I really that I wanna highlight is the second point that says it prohibits salary history inquiries.

 

Now I I I got to believe that some of you are in states and and or cities that have already passed legislation that prohibits you from asking applicants about their prior salary histories. So this won’t be foreign to some of you, but some of you, you hear that and go, woah. You know, that that that’s that’s a trend that is happening, in in various state legislations, and even some larger cities have done that. Philadelphia comes to mind. But, that is a component, a real key component to that type of legislation.

 

The other thing is it’s the reinstatement of the federal EEO 1. Sure most everybody on the call does the EEO 1, and this would reinstate the component too. Those of you, I’m sure everybody on the call would remember this was something that was put in place under the Obama administration. Trump gets elected, and he tries to basically do away with it. Courts made the EEOC go forward with it once.

 

So we had one round, and then it was was paused. We anticipate that requirement will come back. It does not require congressional action, so that should be coming back. The other thing I’ll highlight here, expansion of the anti discrimination laws. The the point here is we anticipate codification of the the prohibition against sexual orientation discrimination.

 

Right? Supreme court’s already addressed this, but title 7 is expected to be changed to add that. I don’t think that’s gonna rock any any worlds, for anybody. So I won’t I won’t spend any real time talking about that. So, just a couple of things about the future of work and what we’re anticipating.

 

One thing is paid leave. There’s legislation called the family act. Obviously, it sounds very similar to the FMLA, f FAMLA, but family act. And it’s essentially proposed paid leave, partial paid leave. This is not new in terms of things legislation suspended or used.

 

I mean, this was actually, some of us would guess it would some form of that would have come under the, Trump administration. Ivanka was pretty vocal about that, Trump’s daughter, but didn’t didn’t didn’t happen to private sector employers. But very similar qualifying reasons to FMLA. But at least as proposed, it’s not, you know, FMLA has got the threshold for 50 or more employees within 75 mile radius. That, as proposed, that would not be part of this legislation.

 

So potential potential, legislation for paid leave coming down the pipe. Now I was curious how many folks are, have unionized operations. So some of you will care about this, some of you won’t. There’s part of this that all of you should care about. The things that we anticipate to see activity in, the quick election procedures, that’s something we, that was scaled back during the Trump administration.

 

Standards for employee handbooks. This is something that everybody, could potentially be implicated by even if you don’t have unions. Is, you know, which is basically, under the Obama administration, there there was a real attack on, handbook policies, on investigations, that kind of thing. Social media, relaxed under the Trump administration and and anticipating a return to what we saw under the Obama administration. So a very active NLRB is what we’re what we’re anticipating.

 

There is some key legislation that has passed the house. It’s not passed the senate yet. It’s not been taken up. But if it does, it’s called the protecting the right to organize, act, and it would be, really major changes. It would replace secret battle representation elections with the concept of a car check, which would be a a real major major deal.

 

So a lot going on there. There’s some case law precedent to watch. If you have any comments on today’s show or suggestions for future episodes, send an email to podcast at trsa.org. Also, please information from the linen uniform and facility services industry, subscribe to our newsletter Textile Services Weekly and monthly print publication Textile Services magazine. Additionally, don’t forget to follow TRC on Facebook, Instagram, Linkedin, and Twitter.