On December 29, 2022, President Joe Biden signed a $1.7 trillion spending bill into law that included a pair of amendments which significantly change civil rights laws affecting new and expecting mothers. Below is a synopsis of the new laws. The Pregnant Workers Fairness Act (“PWFA”): The...
While conditions with the COVID-19 pandemic continue to improve, questions linger over vaccine mandates, testing requirements, caregiver rights, and other novel COVID-related topics. Recently, the United States Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (“EEOC”) updated its COVID-19 guidance concerning religious-based exemptions from mandatory vaccination policies. The EEOC’s...
Two important rulings have allowed two of the government’s COVID-19 vaccine mandates to go into effect. Below is a synopsis of these rulings and where things stand now. Healthcare Vaccine Mandate Resumes in Roughly Half the U.S.: On December 15, 2021, the U.S. Court of Appeals for...
Changes to the effective dates of the federal government’s multiple COVID-19 mandates continue coming at a fast pace. Below is a synopsis of the recent changes. Healthcare Vaccine Mandate Halted: Yesterday, November 30, 2021, a U.S. District Court in Louisiana blocked the Biden administration’s vaccine mandate applicable...
On November 5, 2021, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (“OSHA”) unveiled its emergency temporary standard (“ETS”) requiring employers with 100 or more employees to mandate vaccination against COVID-19 or weekly testing. Since then, the ETS has been met by a tidal wave of legal...
On September 9, 2021, President Biden issued his “Path out of the Pandemic” COVID-19 Action Plan (hereinafter “the Plan”). The Plan outlines six general points of focus: 1) vaccinating the unvaccinated; 2) establishing further protections for the vaccinated; 3) keeping schools safely open; 4) increasing...
On October 2, 2020, the Michigan Supreme Court (“Court”) ruled that Governor Gretchen Whitmer (“Governor”) lacked authority to continue issuing COVID-19 related executive orders and/or extend Michigan’s emergency declaration past April 30, 2020. In the aftermath of the Court’s decision, employers and residents were left...
The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) issued new guidance on May 19, 2020, that requires employers to determine whether employees contracted COVID-19 at the workplace. The new guidance is effective May 26, 2020, and requires employers to record cases of COVID-19, if: The case is...
Many local health departments have established rules placing health and safety requirements on businesses amidst the COVID-19 pandemic. These local rules may seem at first blush to be similar to those established by state or federal agencies, but it is important to understand that they...
On April 9, 2020, the Centers for Disease Control (“CDC”) issued updated guidance providing that critical infrastructure workers may continue to work after “potential exposure” to COVID-19 if they remain asymptomatic and take additional precautions to protect themselves and the community. “Potential exposure” is defined...