Womble Employment Law Blog

A newly revised Form I-9 has been published by U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services ("USCIS"), and must be used by employers for new hires beginning on September 18, 2017.  The revised form bears the date of "07/17/17 N"  and, in addition to making some minor changes to the form's instructions, updates the list of acceptable documents that may be used to establish identity and authorization to work in the United States.  The prior version (with the revised date "11/14/16 N") may be used until September 17, 2017, but businesses are free to use the newly revised form right away if they wish.  The revised form, as well as detailed information about Form I-9 compliance, is available at the USCIS website.

A federal court in North Carolina has ruled that a jury trial will be held in a case brought by the EEOC challenging a hospital's mandatory flu shot policy.  The case was filed in 2016 by the EEOC for a group of terminated employees who failed to request a religious exemption by a certain deadline and did not get the required flu shot.  On August 7, 2017, the United States District Court for the Western District of North Carolina ruled that it could not dismiss the case at summary judgment without a trial, concluding that a jury would be needed to decide whether workers who did not request a religious exemption to the policy were treated more favorably. The mandatory flu shot policy required that workers obtain a flu shot by December 1.  However, to accommodate sincere religious beliefs, the policy also allowed workers who had objections to receiving a flu shot on religious grounds to request an exemption under the policy.  The po...

Remember to use the new Form I-9!  In case you missed the announcement, the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (“USCIS”) published an updated Form I-9 that all employers in the United States must use, effective January 22, 2017.  The prior version is now invalid and should not be used.  While the new Form I-9 looks very similar to the previous version, it does contain several substantive changes as well as “smart features” that were previously unavailable. The new Form I-9 can be found on the USCIS website .   With regard to the content of the new Form I-9, the changes are readily apparent in the instructions, which increased from six pages to fifteen pages.   Within the actual form, employers will see five notable changes in Section 1.   First, the “Other Names Used” field has been replaced with an “Other Last Names Used” field.   Second, employees must now indicate whether an Alien Registration Number (if provided) is a...

By Theresa Sprain, Patricia Heyen, and John E. Pueschel In a significant decision that expands the rights of employees, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit ruled on April 4, 2017 that discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation is a form of sex discrimination under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.  Kimberly Hively v. Ivy Tech Community College , No. 15-1720 (7th Cir. April 4, 2017).  The Seventh Circuit is the highest court in the United States to hold that sexual orientation is a form of sex discrimination under Title VII. Kimberly Hively, a part-time, adjunct professor at Ivy Tech Community College, alleged that she was repeatedly denied consideration for full-time teaching positions and her part-time contract was not renewed due to her sexual orientation.  Hively filed suit in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Indiana, alleging violations of Title VII. Ivy Tech filed a motion to dismiss, arguing that sexual...

A new North Carolina law provides an additional avenue for employers to seek redress from employees who have taken company information for personal use.   N.C.G.S. § 99A-2, which became effective January 1, 2016, provides that “Any person who intentionally gains access to the nonpublic areas of another’s premises and engages in an act that exceeds the person’s authority to enter those areas is liable to the owner or operator of the premises for any damages sustained.”  N.C.G.S. § 99A-2(a).  The statute lists several examples of acts that exceed a person’s authority, and first among those examples is an employee who takes company information for use beyond the scope of his or her employment: An employee who enters the nonpublic areas of an employer's premises for a reason other than a bona fide intent of seeking or holding employment or doing business with the employer and thereafter without authorization captures or removes the employer's data, paper, recor...

The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) announced in an August 27, 2015 decision that it was changing the test to determine whether two related businesses are "joint employers." In sum, the federal position announced in the NLRB decision is that many more businesses, like franchisors-franchisees, manufacturers-distributors, and staffing agencies and their clients can be held jointly liable for employment claims (wage and hour violations, discrimination and harassment, etc.) and could more easily organized by labor unions. This new legal test will be a major change for many businesses if it survives the expected court challenge. 

Updated, September 19, 2017:  The 2016 "white collar" regulations were struck down in federal court, and never became effective. On July 6, 2015, the U.S. Department of Labor (“DOL”) issued proposed new regulations that will significantly change the law governing certain “white collar” workers who are exempt from minimum wage and overtime pay.   All employers need to become familiar with these proposed rules, which may, if they become final, greatly impact wages and overtime pay to workers.   In addition, for those that want to have their voices heard, there is still time (until September 4, 2015) for the public to make formal comments to the DOL. Under the Fair Labor Standards Act (“FLSA”), which is the federal wage and hour law, some employees may be classified as “exempt” from the Act’s minimum wage and overtime pay requirements.    The most well-known and commonly used exemptions are the so-called “white collar” exemptions applicable to executive...