Offit Kurman Blogs

As I’ve written before, the employment laws of the states where an employer hires employees are applicable to the employment relationship. If you missed that blog, you can access it here. I am listing more types of laws to consider.

Sexual harassment policies:

• It may be legally required to adopt a policy against sexual harassment and provide notice of the policy at certain times.

Workplace safety laws:

• Enough said.

Non-competition agreements in an employment relationship:

• Severely limited or forbidden in some states and may soon be federally banned. Please look at my previous blog on this topic and the proposed legislation.

Mini-COBRA laws:

• There are some state laws applying the COBRA requirements to employers with less than 20 employees.

Voting leave:

• In certain cases, employers are required to provide leave to vote for a certain length of time and be paid for this.

Lie detector tests:

• Requiring or requesting one is unlawful in some locations.

Requiring the use of certain surnames:

• In some states, it’s illegal for employers to require employees to use, because of such individual's sex or marital status, any surname other than the one by which such individual is generally known.

Veterans’ Day & Memorial Day leave:

• Employers in some locations must grant unpaid leave to a veteran or a member of a Department of War veteran who desires to participate in a Memorial Day exercise, parade, or service in the employee's community of residence.

Volunteer emergency responders’ leave:

• Employers can’t take any disciplinary action against any employee of some states because they fail to report for work at the commencement of their regular working hours, where such failure is due to his responding to an emergency in their capacity as a volunteer member of a fire or ambulance department.

This list is not exhaustive. I will continue the list in my next blog. I’m able to advise on employment laws applicable in other states, as needed.