Currently pending before the Arizona legislature, Senate Bill 1648 would prohibit discrimination in the workplace (and elsewhere) against individuals who have not received or who refuse to receive a COVID-19 vaccine. As proposed, the bill would prohibit any employer from requiring a person to receive or disclose whether they have received a COVID-19 vaccine as … Continue Reading
Like many states, Arizona has been a recent target in the wave of nationwide fraudulent unemployment claims. When the CARES Act passed in the spring of 2020, states were authorized to award expanded unemployment relief to persons whose jobs were impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic, including some persons who otherwise were ineligible for or had … Continue Reading
Arizona employers are now expressly prohibited by state law from discriminating against employees on the basis of pregnancy or childbirth. On January 28, 2021, the Arizona Legislature passed, and on Thursday, February 4, 2021, Arizona Governor Doug Ducey signed into law, HB 2045, which amends the state civil rights statute to clarify that existing statutory … Continue Reading
It’s a not-so-uncommon scenario for employers. An employer terminates an employee. The employee files a charge with the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) alleging her termination was the motivated by unlawful discrimination. The EEOC asks the employer to provide a comprehensive response to the charge, supplemented with voluminous documents requested by the agency in … Continue Reading
For citizens of Arizona, Montana, New Jersey, and South Dakota, 11/3 may become another 4/20, as on Election Day, voters in those states approved initiatives to joining 11 other US states that previously decriminalized recreational adult use of marijuana.[1] Employers in those states however may not be as enthusiastic, since approval of recreational marijuana use … Continue Reading
As part of Squire Patton Boggs’ ongoing focus on COVID-19 pandemic challenges and opportunities, on November 5, 2020 at 2:00 p.m. Eastern, Laura Lawless of the firms’ Labor & Employment Practice Group will host an hour-long discussion aimed at healthcare employers that will focus on some of the key issues that are front and center … Continue Reading
In June 2020, we added a post to Employment Law Worldview addressing the complicated situation employers are in when employees express – sometime respectfully, sometimes not – different, and indeed, opposite views on COVID-19 issues (e.g., legitimate public health emergency versus hoax or “plandemic”), racial justice (“Black Lives Matter” versus “All Lives Matter”), and politics … Continue Reading
With Election Day just a few weeks away, it’s an appropriate time to refresh our understanding of state voting leave laws and the obligations imposed on private sector employers by those laws. Although absentee voting by mail and universal mail voting have become more common since the last presidential election in 2016, many voters undoubtedly … Continue Reading
On Friday, May 15, 2020, Arizona’s “Stay Home, Stay Healthy, Stay Connected” order will expire. At that time, only a handful of states (Connecticut, Illinois, Massachusetts, and New Jersey) will still be under broad stay-at-home restrictions, but even those remaining states will begin the phased reopening process between May 15 and 30. As employers begin … Continue Reading
The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) public health emergency has changed life as we know it, including by severely disrupting business on a nationwide scale. In some cases, employers have been forced to temporarily close their doors and cease operations, while others have had to make radical changes to the workplace in order to maintain operations. … Continue Reading
In 2017, Arizona passed the Fair Wages and Healthy Families Act, which requires all Arizona employers to provide paid sick leave (PSL) to their employees, whether they work full-time or part-time or on a permanent, temporary, or occasional basis. (A number of other US states have passed paid sick leave laws.) Employers with fewer than … Continue Reading
