Employment Law Notebook

Now that adults in New Jersey will be able to start purchasing cannabis for recreational use on Thursday, many workplace rules regarding background checks, drug testing, and use of marijuana will have to change.  But delays in expected regulations regarding what employers can do to assess if employees/applicants are impaired  creates uncertainty for both employees and employers.

Hey employers. If you know that a group of your employees are unvaccinated or tested positive for COVID-19, should you send them all a group email letting them know about your COVID-19 requirements?  That’s what the City of Boston did to 100 unvaccinated workers, who now know the private, medical information of the other 99 employees in the group email. 

Five months after requiring New Jersey healthcare employees to get vaccinated with the COVID-19 vaccine or undergo weekly COVID-19 testing, Governor Phil Murphy has slashed the testing option for many healthcare workers.

Starting January 27, most employees working on site for Healthcare entities that are certified Medicare and Medicaid providers must be vaccinated with at least one dose of COVID-19 vaccine (Phase 1) and get the second dose of a two-dose COVID-19 vaccine by February 28 (Phase 2).

Each day there are more and more stories of people quitting their jobs without another job.  As an employment lawyer, I am here to tell you that there are many reasons to hit pause and think about the consequences before you do so: Here’s some important ones:

In two anticipated decisions, the US Supreme Court blocked the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (“OSHA”) from requiring employers with 100 or more employees to mandate their employees get the COVID-19 vaccine or get tested weekly for the virus and gave the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (“CMS”) the green light to condition Medicare and Medicaid funding of health care fa

Employers: Although the Supreme Court listened to arguments for 2 hours on Friday, the Court has not yet released an opinion about whether or not to stay the Occupational Safety and Health Administration's Vaccination and Testing Emergency Temporary Standard for employers with 100 or more employees. As the Court released many other opinions this morning, it appears the Justices are taking time

It’s always a bad idea to retaliate against an employee who quits or complains about not being paid, but this lawsuit recently brought by the US Department of Labor really shines a light on this advice.  Talk about being penny wise and pound foolish!

It’s hard to believe it’s been almost  two years since COVID-19 turned our lives upside down.  While it would be great to toast the new year with this madness behind us, constantly changing state and federal rules related to COVID-19 and the increased transmission of the virus requires employers to continue to be focused on the relationship between the virus, vaccines and their employees in 202

This week outgoing New York City Mayor Bill De Blasio announced that all employers that have worksites in New York City with more than 1 employee will soon have to require such employees to get the COVID-19 vaccine.