SimplyHR | Employment & Labor Blog 

A new federal law goes into effect June 27, 2023, related to covered employers’ obligations to provide pregnancy accommodations to employees and job applicants.

As we previewed in our 2023 Federal Employment Law Forecast, Congress passed the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act (PWFA) as an amendment to the government funding bill, which President Biden signed on December 29, 2022. The law charges the EEOC with issuing regulations interpreting the PWFA, although the EEOC has not yet indicated when it will do so.

We are finally moving past the plethora of pandemic-era employment laws that riddled this blog over the past two years. However, not all will be quiet in 2023, as the breadth of pending U.S. Supreme Court cases and issues agencies are reviewing is wide and has the potential to disrupt several industries. This recap and forecast highlights a few of those topics.

Missouri

2022 was relatively quiet for Missouri employers, except for the buzz around recreational marijuana (forgive our pun). As explained in more detail below, the law does not limit Missouri employers from continuing to drug test and discipline employees who violate anti-use policies, with certain modifications for medicinal users. 2023 also brings a Missouri minimum wage rate hike, but we expect employees may still grumble, as this increase does not pace with inflation.

As in 2020, employment law in 2021 was dominated by COVID-19 as employers grappled with whether to voluntarily extend employee benefits provided by the Families First Coronavirus Response Act, issues with working remotely, and returning to work. The new year begins with uncertainty as the U.S. Supreme Court is set to decide the fate of several employer vaccine mandates in just a few days. The pandemic’s challenges are sure to keep employers busy in 2022. Here are our picks for the highlights of last year and a look at what’s to come in the new year.

Missouri

Other than a new state minimum wage ($11.15 per hour), 2022 is starting off quietly in Missouri. However, last year brought two major developments affecting employers that are summarized below. The COVID-19 Liability Shield is exactly as it sounds, providing protections for employers against suits by individuals who claim they were exposed to COVID-19. Similarly, the Domestic Violence Leave Law provides job-protected leave for individuals who need to address issues related to domestic violence.

Almost two weeks after the effective date of the Families First Coronavirus Response Act (FFCRA), many employers are still not certain what information and documents they should obtain from employees who request emergency paid sick leave and/or expanded family and medical leave. To recap, there are six reasons an employee can take emergency paid sick leave.

On April 9, 2020, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) issued its updated Technical Assistance Questions and Answers titled “What You Should Know About COVID-19 and the ADA, the Rehabilitation Act, and Other EEO Laws” addressing several questions that have arisen since the beginning of this national emergency and reminding us that even during a pandemic, employers need to be cognizant of their obligations under the ADA and other EEO laws. A summary of the questions and answers is provided below.

A more comprehensive guide from the EEOC can be found in “Pandemic Preparedness in the Workplace and the Americans With Disabilities Act,” which was drafted during the prior H1N1 outbreak and last revised on March 21, 2020, to address COVID-19.

As claims for unemployment rise, Missouri and Illinois have eased the typical restrictions for unemployed workers to obtain benefits. Coupled with the Federal Pandemic Unemployment Compensation, which is being administered by the states, both employers and employees are seeing some relief during the COVID-19 pandemic.

On April 1, 2020, the Department of Labor released a temporary rule issuing regulations under the Families First Coronavirus Response Act (FFCRA) effective immediately through December 31, 2020. Employers who have been wrestling with compliance with the FFCRA’s paid leave provisions will recognize much of the material in these regulations from the DOL’s informal guidance or from the CARES Act’s amendments to the FFCRA*. The regulations also include some helpful clarification:

As we explained last week, a federal judge recently ruled that all employers who are required to submit EEO-1 surveys must report 2018 employee pay data by Sept. 30, 2019. In that ruling, the court also ordered the EEOC to collect a second year of pay data and gave the agency a choice between collecting employers’ 2017 data with the 2018 pay data or waiting to collect 2019 pay data next year.