Hunton Employment & Labor Perspectives

The New York State Department of Labor released its anticipated airborne infectious disease standard and sample plan on July 6.  Employers have until August 5, 2021 to adopt or create a plan to comply with the standard.

On June 30, 2021, President Biden signed a joint resolution narrowly passed by Congress to repeal a Trump-era rule that would have increased the EEOC’s information-sharing requirements during the statutorily mandated conciliation process.

Over the past six months, the California Supreme Court as well as the State’s appellate courts have published a number of important decisions in the area of California labor and employment law. The California Supreme Court’s decisions published earlier this year in Donohue v. AMN Services, LLC (2021) 11 Cal.5th 58 and Vazquez v. Jan-Pro Franchising International, Inc. (2021) 10 Cal.5th 944 were previously covered in Hunton Labor & Employment perspectives. (See Link 1 & Link 2 [discussing the Ninth Circuit’s earlier 2019 decision].)

President Joe Biden signed a new executive order on July 9, called the Executive Order on Promoting Competition in the American Economy, aimed at cracking down on monopolies in Big Tech, labor and other sectors.  According to a Fact Sheet released by the White House, the Executive Order includes 72 initiatives the President wants over a dozen federal agencies to undertake for the stated purpose of promoting competition throughout the U.S. economy.

HuntonAK Labor and Employment partner M. Brett Burns was honored as a Daily Journal Top Labor & Employment Lawyer 2021. This annual list recognizes California’s top attorneys who have made significant contributions to their field of practice.

The US Supreme Court’s recent decision in Cedar Point Nursery et al. v. Hassid et al., No. 20-107 (June 23, 2021), a case pitting agricultural employee rights to freedom of association and self-organization under California law, against employer private property rights of California agricultural employers, marks a clear victory for property rights.  

HuntonAK Labor and Employment partner and practice group co-chair Emily Burkhardt Vicente was recognized at the Los Angeles Business Journal’s 2021 Women’s Leadership Awards. Emily was honored as a Champion of Women nominee. The award recognizes individuals whose day to day efforts are dedicated to educating and empowering women in business.

On June 12, 2021, a federal judge sitting in the Southern District of Texas held that Houston Methodist Hospital could require its employees to receive the COVID-19 vaccine, dismissing the lawsuit brought by 117 plaintiffs who protested the requirement.  See Bridges v. Houston Methodist Hospital, No. 4:21-cv-01774 (S.D. Tex. June 12, 2021).  This opinion marks the first federal ruling on the topic of vaccine mandates, serving as an early indication of how courts may respond to the legal considerations involved in employers’ attempts to have their employees return safely to the office amidst the COVID-19 pandemic.

Employers remember the seminal Supreme Court decision in Bostock v. Clayton County, Ga., where the Court held that Title VII’s “because of sex” protections extend to sexual orientation and transgender status.  (See our previous blog entry.)   Now, on the one-year anniversary of that influential case, the EEOC has issued guidance to clarify whether employers can segregate bathrooms by gender or sex.  That question was conspicuously left unresolved in Bostock.

HuntonAK Labor and Employment associate Alyson Brown was recently named to The National Black Lawyers Top 40 Under 40 in Virginia, Class of 2021.