SimplyHR | Employment & Labor Blog 

On March 23, 2021, Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker signed into law Senate Bill 1480, the Employee Background Fairness Act. This impacts Illinois employers because it imposes new obligations under the Illinois Human Rights Act (IHRA) on the way they can use criminal convictions to assess employment eligibility for applicants and current employees. It also imposes new reporting and registration requirements concerning employee demographics under the Illinois Business Corporation Act (IBCA) and the Illinois Equal Pay Act (IEPA) and creates new whistleblower anti-retaliation protections under the IEPA.

While Missouri employers saw few legislative updates that will affect the state of employment law in 2020, the Illinois legislature had a busy year. Below is a look at some of the legislative highlights of 2019 and how they might affect your business in 2020.

Under a new law set to take effect September 29, 2019, Illinois employers will be prohibited from, among other things, asking for an employee’s wage history during the hiring process. The law, which amends the Illinois Equal Pay Act, is designed with the intent of avoiding future pay disparity between men and women based on prior wage differences.

On June 9, 2018, Kansas City, Missouri’s “ban-the-box” ordinance went into effect. The ordinance is applicable to private employers with six or more employees and is being touted as Ban-the-Box-PLUS, since it not only prohibits the use of questions about criminal background on the job application form but also requires employers to have additional justifiable reasons for using an applicant or employee’s criminal background as the basis for any employment decision.