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Using the Uber Report
To Improve Your Organization

There is probably no plaque hanging in the headquarters of Uber Technologies Inc. with P.T. Barnum’s adage, “There’s no such thing as bad publicity.”  The upstart ride sharing service has come into its own share of disruption following allegations of law avoidance software, a culture of sexual harassment, wage-related lawsuits, and regulatory scrutiny of its core business model. Recent allegations about its frat-house culture resulted in its Board of Directors hiring former Attorney-General Eric Holder to engage in a sweeping review of its workplace culture and complaint-handling systems. 

The Uber Report

Holder’s full report is not publicly available as of this writing, but Uber has released a twelve page set of recommendations. Although they derive from interviews and focus groups with the company’s employees, the recommendations follow best practices for organizational effectiveness, respectful workplaces, and a diverse workforce.

Some of the recommendations refer to particular circumstances within Uber, but most of them are nevertheless applicable to all other organizations. Even those portions of the recommendations that are most specific to Uber, such as recommended changes to its senior leadership, include core principles that should be considered by other organizations, such as holding senior leaders accountable with “metrics that are tied to improving diversity, responsiveness to employee complaints, employee satisfaction, and compliance.”

In addition to the section on senior leadership, there are multipart sections on Board oversight, internal controls, review of cultural values, training, improvements to the HR and complaint-handling process, diversity and inclusivity enhancements, changes in employee policies and practices, review of employee retention factors, and review of compensation practices.

Using Their Recommendations as Your Checklist

These areas should be viewed as a checklist by other organizations: areas to review in a deliberative way to ensure regulatory compliance, market relevance, and employee engagement. Organizations, whether public or private, large or small, can achieve sharper focus and manage their employment-related risks by having organizational values that are consistent and modeled by leadership; holding persons accountable for achieving, or failing to achieve, value-based objectives; designing effective systems for reaching organizational goals, and supporting them with sufficient skills and resources; and developing practices that promote and fulfill a sense of fairness.

The Holder-Uber recommendations provide a window into some of the granular steps necessary to accomplish those goals. We recommend that executive leadership review the report and assess their organization’s related strengths and deficiencies.

We are here to assist the effort. We have engaged in workplace climate assessments and strategic discussions around the same issues addressed in the report. If you would like to discuss your options, please call or contact us.

Minneapolis Minimum Wage Ordinance-Update

Here is an update, current as of June 14, on the Minneapolis City Council’s movement toward an increase in the minimum wage for employees working within the city of Minneapolis (Council File Number: 17-00723).

  • A draft ordinance has been presented to the City Council (technically to the Committee of the Whole). The draft is available here.
  • A slide presentation on the proposed ordinance is available here. Note that the ordinance will cover employees who normally work within the City for at least two hours in a given workweek.
  • A public hearing will be held on Thursday, June 22, 2017, at 3:30pm. Comments can be submitted before that time by e-mail to this address.
  • The final draft ordinance will go before the Council’s Committee of the Whole on Wednesday, June 28, 2017, at 10:00am. The Council is expected to act on the matter on Friday, June 30, at it’s 9:30am meeting.

The City’s staff has prepared a report on the issues, which is available here. Among its many important points is a comparison of buying power. See paragraph a on page 21.

Note also that there has been no traction to date on changing the State’s law that bars tip credits toward the minimum wage. (For mid-priced restaurants, which present relatively affordable options served by employees who receive customer gratuities, the increase in minimum wage without a tip credit is likely to result in cuts to already slim profit margins, and/or increased wage disparities between customer-facing staff (front of house) and those supporting the efforts behind the scenes (back of house), and/or higher prices for consumers.)

Information on Minnesota’s current minimum wage laws can be found here, here, and here.

If you have questions concerning this or other employment-related laws, please call or contact us.

Still Using Old F.M.L.A. Forms?

Many employers covered by the federal Family and Medical Leave Act are still using forms from the U.S. Department of Labor that expired in 2012. Newer forms, which are good through May 31, 2018, are available from Labor’s web site.

There are several reasons to use the current forms. Perhaps the most important reason is that the current F.M.L.A.-related forms include “safe harbor” text to avoid inadvertently violating the Genetic Information Nondisclosure Act (“GINA”). That law prohibits an employer’s discriminating against an employee “because of genetic information with respect to the employee….” The safe harbor text, incorporated into the newer F.M.L.A. forms, precludes liability under GINA from an employer’s unintential receipt of an employee’s genetic information during the interactive process or other F.M.L.A.-related activities.

If you’re not already using the current Department of Labor forms or other forms revised to include the GINA safe harbor provided at 29 C.F.R. §1635.8(b)(1)(i)(B), it would be prudent to update soon.

Bargaining with Unions that Represent a Minority of Employees

Generally, a private-sector employer that is not in the construction industry has an obligation to bargain with a union only when that union represents a majority of employees in the relevant unit. Sometimes the union is recognized voluntarily by the employer; sometimes they are certified by the National Labor Relations Board (“N.L.R.B.”), a federal agency. Either way, that union becomes the “exclusive bargaining representative” for covered employees. Now, though, employers may soon receive demands to bargain with unions that do not represent a majority of employees.

In the recent case of Children’s Hosp. of Oakland, 364 N.L.R.B. No. 114 (2016), the National Labor Relations Board held that an employer was required “to  arbitrate pending grievances arising under an expired collective-bargaining agreement with the union that was party to that agreement, even if the union has been superseded by another union….” That part is important, but there was another piece of the case that may prove to be more difficult to implement.

In a concurrence, Member Hirozawa wrote with approval about a doctrine that many labor lawyers thought had been put to rest. He articulated the basis for an employer’s duty to bargain with a union on behalf of that union’s members, even if the union does not represent a majority of the unit employees. Noting that a covered employer’s statutory obligation to bargain is “subject to the provisions of” Section 9(a) of the National Labor Relations Act , he wrote, “I think it is also useful, however, to consider what the subject-to-Section-9(a) clause does not mean.  It does not mean that for an employer to have a duty to bargain with a union on behalf of its employees, the union must be a Section 9(a) exclusive representative.”

That non-exclusivity doctrine, which had been argued by, among others, Charles Morris, a well-respected author and law professor, appeared to have been struck down for good after the N.L.R.B.’s Office of General Counsel issued an “Advice Memorandum” ten years ago. Now, though, Member Hirozawa’s concurrence has breathed into it new life, and Prof. Morris, sensing that the doctrine might once again be stirring, has posted a comment on the topic.

What does it all mean? It means that employers may soon be receiving demands to bargain from unions which concede that they represent only a minority of employees. How to respond depends, as always, on an assessment of each employer’s values, situation, goals, and options.

Please let us know if you would like additional information or assistance.

Trade Secrets, Overtime, and Other Priority Developments

It’s been a busy time in the world of employment law. A few recent developments have particular priority for human resources managers and general business lawyers. This post concerns three of those developments: trade secrets, overtime exemptions, and changes to the E.E.O.-1 form.

New Trade Secret Protections and Requirements

One development concerns proprietary and confidential information. A new law offers the first federal protections for trade secrets. It’s an important law. Part of it authorizes the seizure of things that were used in the process of allegedly diverting trade secrets, such as computers and storage media. That’s an important contingency that should be considered when provisioning critical hardware, proprietary software, and network access.

Another part of the law requires the supplementation of all agreements with employees and contractors which addresses confidential information or trade secrets. Those materials must now contain a notice to employees (or reference to a separate, available document) to the effect that trade secrets may be used in a limited fashion to engage in whistleblowing activity or in employment litigation alleging whistleblower retaliation.

In light of the Defend Trade Secrets Act, employee agreements, handbook policies, and other materials which contain provisions on trade secrets should be reviewed and supplemented with appropriate text as soon as possible. (And, of course, this is a good opportunity to be sure that other developments from the past few years are properly implemented, such as Minnesota’s Women’s Economic Security Act and the N.L.R.B.’s application of Section 7 to handbook and other employee policies.)

New Overtime Eligibility Rule, Pay Equity, and the E.E.O.-1

Most employers by now have received multiple announcements of the final rule issued last month by the U.S. Department of Labor concerning the increased salary threshold required to be exempt from overtime. Organizations should review their options on classifying and compensating affected employees. There are several ways to proceed in compliance with the regulation, depending on employer objectives.

Just complying with the new rule, though, could leave an organization vulnerable to adverse assessments in the near future, assuming that the categories of data required for the E.E.O.-1 form expand as planned. Here’s why, and what to do:

All organizations with 100 employees and many smaller organizations must file an E.E.O.-1 annually with the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. The form includes information on current employees by job category, ethnicity, and sex. If the current rulemaking proceeds as planned, the form will also include twelve compensation bands. Now hold that thought….

There’s been a resumption in the discussions among some circles about comparable worth analyses. The comparable worth approach seeks to close the gender-based pay gap by comparing compensation by gender within “comparable,” but not “equal,” jobs. Minnesota and California have long required comparable pay assessments in the public sector. Minnesota now also requires comparable pay for private and third sector employers with at least forty employees having government contracts of at least a half-million dollars. There is an increased focus, and in some areas also legislative activity, around employee protections for discussing compensation issues. Add in the increase in data collection, analysis, and dissemination that current technologies and vendors are providing, and it seems likely that there will be an increase in lawsuits attempting to prove sex discrimination through a deep analysis of how employers have arrived at gender disparities in the compensation of comparable, but not equal, jobs. Let’s go back to those E.E.O.-1 changes.

The new form will funnel multiple jobs and job categories into a dozen compensation-based bands for employers (and sufficiently related employer groups) having 100 employees. By doing so, the information will help the government to assess the distribution of jobs by compensation level as well as by the various other attributes entered into the form.

The information should also help employers to smooth out gender- (and other non-job-) based inequities, whether derived from bias, history, or other sources. Smoothing out those arguable inequities would minimize exposure to a range of problems based on a comparable worth analysis, including investor inquiries, government contract compliance, and even discrimination claims, which have generally been unsuccessful but are showing signs of making a comeback. And what might happen if the EEO-1 shows inequities that are not self-remedied? In litigation, the information would likely become available (from the employer, not the government) to plaintiffs challenging job bias.

Now let’s go back to that new F.L.S.A. regulation. Employers should review the overtime classifications of currently exempt workers who make less than the new salary threshold. They could take this opportunity to review, as well, their other employees’ overtime classifications. But any adjustments employers make—e.g., to classification, compensation levels, compensation mechanisms, reporting lines—should anticipate the forthcoming E.E.O.-1 requirements. This is a good time to rationalize classifications and compensation, and to develop a plan to squeeze out any vestige of bias in the way that employees are compensated and assigned. More guidance on ways to implement the new rule will appear in a later post.

A comprehensive approach to these issues also answers one of the common questions raised by the new F.L.S.A. regulation: “How do I communicate the effects of the rule change to my workforce?” Communicating a systematic review of compensation to make the process more transparent and more equitable can increase an employee’s perception of fairness; and research indicates that increased perceptions of fairness result in a decreased litigation risk. (Other elements to communicate in the course of implementing the regulation depend on employer objectives and choices, but the message to employees need not be negative and the effect on employer budgets need not be extreme.) More information on the subject of communication will appear in a later post.

Note that employers are likely to have an obligation to bargain over one or more aspects of compensation adjustments for unionized employees. The scope of the bargaining duty will depend on the specific collective bargaining relationship, including both contract language and past practice.

A careful implementation of the new overtime salary rule could be an affordable opportunity to improve morale, enhance recruiting and retention, minimize bias-related exposure to liability, and promote regulatory compliance. Let us know if we can help.

Update stream from publisher Wolters Kluwer

N.L.R.B. on Recent Decisions Regarding Employee Rights Posting

The following text is the entire public announcement by the National Labor Relations Board on April 17, 2012, concerning the requirement that employers post notices of certain federal labor law rights:

“In light of conflicting decisions at the district court level, the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals has temporarily enjoined the N.L.R.B.’s rule requiring the posting of employee rights, which had been scheduled to take effect on April 30, 2012.

“In view of the D.C. Circuit’s order, and in light of the strong interest in the uniform implementation and administration of agency rules, regional offices will not implement the rule pending the resolution of the issues before the court.

“In March, the D.C. District Court found that the agency had the authority to issue the rule. The NLRB supports that decision, but plans to appeal a separate part that raised questions about enforcement mechanisms. The agency disagrees with and will appeal last week’s decision by the South Carolina District Court, which found the N.L.R.B. lacked authority to promulgate the rule.

“Chairman Mark Gaston Pearce said of the recent decisions, ‘We continue to believe that requiring employers to post this notice is well within the Board’s authority, and that it provides a genuine service to employees who may not otherwise know their rights under our law.'”

New Online Resource Steps through F.M.L.A. Eligibility

The U.S. Department of Labor recently released an updated version of its Family and Medical Leave Act Advisor. The F.M.L.A. Advisor is an online resource that, through an interactive question-and-answer program, helps to clarify which employers are required to provide F.M.L.A. leave and which employees are eligible to take such leave. The resource also provides links and information concerning valid reasons for leave, notice requirements, certification steps, citations to regulations, and other information.

The Advisor may not answer all difficult F.M.L.A. questions, and it does not provide information on how to handle cases that involve not only F.M.L.A. but also the Americans with Disabilities Act or state worker’s compensation law. Nevertheless, it is a helpful first step that, in some cases, may provide all the assistance that a human resources manager needs.

Genetic Discrimination

The subject of this post is not a recent development, but, because many employers remain out of compliance, it is still a timely item. The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission has revised its “E.E.O. Is The Law” poster to include information about the Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act of 2008 (“GINA”), which became effective near the end of 2009. The poster also includes information about the Americans with Disabilities Act Amendments Act of 2008 and some updates from the U.S. Department of Labor. To order or print the revised poster or a supplement to go next to your existing (2008) poster, go here. (To review posters on other subjects currently available from the Department of Labor, go here.)

As a reminder–or perhaps a first look–here is how the E.E.O.C. currently interprets the law, which affects employers having fifteen or more employees:

Overview

Under Title II of GINA, it is illegal to discriminate against employees or applicants because of genetic information. Title II of GINA prohibits the use of genetic information in making employment decisions, restricts employers and other entities covered by Title II (employment agencies, labor organizations and joint labor-management training and apprenticeship programs – referred to as “covered entities”) from requesting, requiring or purchasing genetic information, and strictly limits the disclosure of genetic information. The E.E.O.C. enforces Title II of GINA, which addresses genetic discrimination in employment. (The Departments of Labor, Health and Human Services and the Treasury have responsibility for issuing regulations for Title I of GINA, which addresses the use of genetic information in health insurance.)

Definition of “Genetic Information”

Genetic information includes information about an individual’s genetic tests and the genetic tests of an individual’s family members, as well as information about the manifestation of a disease or disorder in an individual’s family members (i.e. family medical history). Family medical history is included in the definition of genetic information because it is often used to determine whether someone has an increased risk of getting a disease, disorder, or condition in the future. Genetic information also includes an individual’s request for, or receipt of, genetic services, or the participation in clinical research that includes genetic services by the individual or a family member of the individual, and the genetic information of a fetus carried by an individual or by a pregnant woman who is a family member of the individual and the genetic information of any embryo legally held by the individual or family member using an assisted reproductive technology.

Discrimination because of Genetic Information

The law forbids discrimination on the basis of genetic information when it comes to any aspect of employment, including hiring, firing, pay, job assignments, promotions, layoffs, training, fringe benefits, or any other term or condition of employment. An employer may never use genetic information to make an employment decision, because genetic information is not relevant to an individual’s current ability to work.

Harassment because of Genetic Information

Under GINA, it is also illegal to harass a person because of his or her genetic information. Harassment can include, for example, making offensive or derogatory remarks about an applicant or employee’s genetic information, or about the genetic information of a relative of the applicant or employee. Although the law doesn’t prohibit simple teasing, offhand comments, or isolated incidents that are not very serious, harassment is illegal when it is so severe or pervasive that it creates a hostile or offensive work environment or when it results in an adverse employment decision (such as the victim’s being fired or demoted). The harasser can be the victim’s supervisor, a supervisor in another area of the workplace, a co-worker, or someone who is not an employee, such as a client or customer.

Retaliation

Under GINA, it is illegal to fire, demote, harass, or otherwise retaliate against an applicant or employee for filing a charge of discrimination, participating in a discrimination proceeding (such as a discrimination investigation or lawsuit), or otherwise opposing discrimination.

Rules against Acquiring Genetic Information

It will usually be unlawful for a covered entity to get genetic information. There are, however, six narrow exceptions to this prohibition:

  • Inadvertent acquisitions of genetic information do not violate GINA, such as in situations where a manager or supervisor overhears someone talking about a family member’s illness.
  • Genetic information (such as family medical history) may be obtained as part of health or genetic services, including wellness programs, offered by the employer on a voluntary basis, if certain specific requirements are met.
  • Family medical history may be acquired as part of the certification process for FMLA leave (or leave under similar state or local laws or pursuant to an employer policy), where an employee is asking for leave to care for a family member with a serious health condition.
  • Genetic information may be acquired through commercially and publicly available documents like newspapers, as long as the employer is not searching those sources with the intent of finding genetic information or accessing sources from which they are likely to acquire genetic information (such as websites and on-line discussion groups that focus on issues such as genetic testing of individuals and genetic discrimination).
  • Genetic information may be acquired through a genetic monitoring program that monitors the biological effects of toxic substances in the workplace where the monitoring is required by law or, under carefully defined conditions, where the program is voluntary.
  • Acquisition of genetic information of employees by employers who engage in DNA testing for law enforcement purposes as a forensic lab or for purposes of human remains identification is permitted, but the genetic information may only be used for analysis of DNA markers for quality control to detect sample contamination.

Confidentiality of Genetic Information

It is also unlawful for a covered entity to disclose genetic information about applicants, employees or members. Covered entities must keep genetic information confidential and in a separate medical file. (Genetic information may be kept in the same file as other medical information in compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act.) There are limited exceptions to this non-disclosure rule, such as exceptions that provide for the disclosure of relevant genetic information to government officials investigating compliance with Title II of GINA and for disclosures made pursuant to a court order.

As with other workplace laws, employers should review their policies and procedures to ensure that they are current and that the appropriate contact people are knowledgeable about the requirements.

Federal Agency To Require Posting of Employee Labor Rights

The National Labor Relations Board has issued a Final Rule that will require covered employers to notify employees of their rights under the National Labor Relations Act, effective November 14, 2011. 

Private-sector employers (including labor organizations) whose workplaces fall under the National Labor Relations Act will be required to post the employee rights notice where other workplace notices are typically posted. Additionally, employers who customarily post notices to employees regarding personnel rules or policies on an internet or intranet site will be required to post the Board’s notice on those sites. Copies of the notice will be available from the Board’s regional offices may also be downloaded from the NLRB website

The notice, which is similar to one required by the U.S. Department of Labor for federal contractors, states that employees have the right to act together to improve wages and working conditions, to form, join and assist a union, to bargain collectively with their employer, as well as to refrain from any of those activities. It provides examples of unlawful employer and union conduct, and instructs employees how to contact the NLRB with questions or complaints. 

The Board received approximately 6,500 comments during the 60-day comment period following publication of the Proposed Rule in the Federal Register, and accepted an additional 500 that arrived after the deadline. In response to the comments, some parts of the rule were modified. For example, employers will not be required to distribute the notice via email, voice mail, text messaging or related electronic communications even if they customarily communicate with their employees in that manner, and they may post notices in black and white as well as in color. The final rule also clarifies requirements for posting in foreign languages. Similar postings of workplace rights are required under other federal workplace laws. 

Questions about compliance with this or other requirements can be directed to this firm, to the National Labor Relations Board, or to other resources familiar with employment and labor law.

Text credit in part to Nancy Cleeland, Director of N.L.R.B. Office of Public Affairs

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