Monthly Archives: November 2023

November 28, 2023

Accommodating a Request for Worship Space in the Workplace

Mark Wiletsky

Question: Do employers need to provide a space for employees to worship and/or pray in the office?

The short answer is: Maybe. You must reasonably accommodate employees’ sincerely held religious, ethical, or moral beliefs or practices unless doing so would impose an undue hardship.

For decades, courts held that employers could deny such requests under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 if the accommodation would impose more than a “de minimis” cost or burden. In June 2023, however, the U.S. Supreme Court “clarified” that standard. In Groff v. DeJoy, the Court held that employers can deny requests for religious accommodation only if the accommodation would result in “substantial increased costs in relation to the conduct of [an employer’s] particular business.” The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) has provided similar guidance, stating that employers shouldn’t try to suppress all religious expression in the workplace. Read more >>

November 14, 2023

Remote Work and Mass Layoffs: A Closer Look at the WARN Act

Leslie Perkins

by Leslie Perkins and Karina Sargsian

With the remote work model becoming increasingly prevalent and technology continuing to reshape the way people work, certain employment laws struggle to keep up with the evolving realities of the modern workforce.

One such law causing confusion as to the extent of its reach in the remote work era is the Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act (“WARN Act”). At its basic core, the WARN Act requires covered employers to provide 60 days advance notice when, among other things, a mass layoff is on the horizon. (More on the specifics below).

Karina Sargsian

The WARN Act defines a mass layoff as an employment loss of a certain number of employees at a “single site of employment.” This raises the issue as to whether layoffs of remote employees trigger the WARN Act at all.

While the WARN Act does not specifically call out remote employees as part of its analysis, this does not mean that companies with remote employees are in the clear of the WARN Act’s reach.

Several courts have taken the position that remote workers are not an excepted class outside the purview of the WARN Act, rather the issue appears to be fact-specific and requires substantive analysis. Meaning, if a company gets sued for violating the WARN Act, it is not a defense to claim that the majority of its employees were remote employees and therefore they have not met the minimum number of employees required to trigger the WARN Act at a “single site of employment.” Read more >>

November 2, 2023

Water Sources and Compliance with the PUMP Act

Dana Dobbins

By Dana Dobbins

Question: To be compliant with the PUMP Act, it states there must be a water source. Must this water source be in the same room as the designated space, or is nearby acceptable? It is difficult to identify a space that can be locked, quiet, and private that is not a bathroom but also has a sink.

Answer: The federal Providing Urgent Maternal Protections for Nursing Mothers Act (PUMP Act) was signed into law on December 29, 2022. The PUMP Act requires em-ployers to provide covered employees with “a place, other than a bathroom, that is shield-ed from view and free from intrusion from coworkers and the public, which may be used by an employee to express breast milk.” 29 U.S.C. 218d(a)(2). This law does not require that a water source be within the designated lactation space. Read more >>