Employers are rightfully concerned about what, if anything, they should be doing to respond to the continued spread of the coronavirus (COVID-19), with confirmed cases in dozens of countries, including the United States.

November 1, 2013 marks the start of new restrictions on Seattle employers’ use of criminal background checks for employment purposes.

The National Labor Relations Board, the agency that enforces federal labor law, continues to challenge employer policies that seek to impose confidentiality constraints on employees.  This is unlikely to change now that the Senate has confirmed President Obama’s nominations for all five members, bringing the NLRB to full strength for the first time in years.

Employers often rely on medical information and disability determinations made in workers' compensation matters to decide whether to return employees back to work, even though such determinations are made without regard to disability discrimination laws. However, it is now clear that employers do so at their own peril. In Cuiellette v. City of Los Angeles, the Second Appellate District Court affirmed a $1,571,500 judgment for disability discrimination and failure to accommodate disability in favor of the employee. In affirming the judgment, the court determined that the proper inquiry is whether an employee's medical restrictions prevented the individual from performing the functions of the position held or the desired position to be held.

This well-established principle surprises many nonunion employers who mistakenly think that the federal law protecting union activities, the National Labor Relations Act ("NLRA"), does not apply to them.  The reality is that the NLRA protects nonunion employees in exactly the same way it protects employees engaged in union activities.