SimplyHR | Employment & Labor Blog 

Employers in Missouri and Illinois saw the passage of several new employment-related laws in 2017. Below is a look at some legislative highlights of 2017 and how they might affect your business in 2018.

Missouri employment laws

The U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) this month issued its revised Fact Sheet #71 on “Internship Programs Under the Fair Labor Standards Act” outlining that the agency will rely on the court-approved “primary beneficiary test” to determine whether an intern should be considered an employee under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA). 

This summer, Missouri Gov. Eric Greitens signed into law Senate Bill 43, which substantially changes the way the Missouri Human Rights Act (MHRA) will be administered and interpreted. The MHRA’s core purpose is to prohibit employers from basing employment decisions on a person’s race, color, religion, national origin, sex, ancestry, age or disability, and it prohibits retaliation for engaging in protected activities covered under the act.

St. Louis city’s new minimum wage law increasing the minimum wage to $10 per hour takes effect May 5, 2017. This comes after a circuit court lifted its injunction that previously blocked the ordinance from taking effect.

With a new year and a new presidential administration, the restroom access debate is a hot topic again.

On Feb. 22, 2017, the Trump administration withdrew the Obama-era directive to public schools that instructed schools to permit transgender students access to restrooms and locker rooms that correspond with their expressed gender identity or risk violating Title IX’s prohibition on sex discrimination. The Trump administration clarified that its action in rescinding President Obama’s guidance was not an attack on the LGBTQ community, but an action taken on the premise that this is a state’s rights issue. Education Secretary Betsy DeVos explained in a statement: “We have a responsibility to protect every student in America and ensure that they have the freedom to learn and thrive in a safe and trusted environment…This is an issue best solved at the state and local level. Schools, communities, and families can find — and in many cases have found — solutions that protect all students.”

The Missouri and Illinois legislatures were quite active in 2016 in creating laws affecting employers, and they have been just as busy in the first few weeks of 2017. Below is a summary of employment law developments that may affect your business in those states in the coming year. 

2016 was a busy year for employment law developments on a national level, and 2017 promises to follow suit. To help employers navigate the changes, here is a summary of major developments that may affect your business this year.

Whether it’s using a company laptop at home or accessing social media and other personal sites via an office desktop computer, the lines between an employee’s personal and work lives are increasingly blurred.

As revealed by the recent Ashley Madison website hack, many employees across the United States use business computers and business email accounts for very personal reasons — reportedly over 15,000 email addresses used to register accounts were linked to government or military servers. However, dealing with an employee who “cheats” on an employer’s computer, Internet or email use policy may not be as simple as it seems.

The United States District Court for the Northern District of California recently dismissed a proposed class action alleging that LinkedIn was a Consumer Reporting Agency (“CSA”) under the Fair Credit Reporting Act (“FCRA”) and violated the law when it provided an online feature that allows businesses to check applicants’ references on the site without the applicants’ knowledge. Sweet v. LinkedIn Corp., 5:14-cv-04531-PSG (N.D. Cal. April 14, 2015). The Plaintiffs unsuccessfully argued that the site’s “Reference Search” feature produced “Consumer Reports” (“CR”) under the law.