As the Department of Labor’s (DOL) composition ebbs and flows from administration to administration, so does the guidance employers receive on one of the most challenging questions in workforce management: Should workers be classified as W-2 employees or as 1099 independent contractors?
On February 26, 2026, the DOL’s Wage and Hour Division announced a proposed
According to a February 27, 2026, 2-1 decision by the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) in Selina S. v. Dep’t of the Army, the EEOC determined that it does not constitute sex discrimination for federal agencies to prohibit transgender employees from using bathrooms, locker rooms, and other intimate spaces that correspond with their
In a case of first impression, the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals held on February 25, 2026, that all claims in a sexual harassment case are prohibited from going to arbitration, not just the sexual harassment claim.
This decision means that employers will not be able to compel arbitration of other employment claims when there
Once again individual employee whistleblowers had an active year pursuing issues for the government under the False Claims Act (FCA). In 2025, FCA recoveries reached their highest mark ever at over $6.8 billion. Of that, over $5 billion came from qui tam suits filed by whistleblowers, with an increased amount coming from cases pursued by
Questions about employee monitoring, especially electronic monitoring, come up regularly these days. Monitoring can involve email, computer log-in history, surveillance cameras, GPS devices, and various types of production metrics. Care is necessary, however, not to run afoul of various labor and privacy laws.
Why do employers implement monitoring policies? Reasons
On January 16, 2026, a federal jury in Atlanta awarded $5.5 million to a security guard who alleged that her security company’s vice president of operations sexually harassed her.
The plaintiff, Makita Bryant, sued both the security company and the vice president in his individual capacity. For her claims against the security company, Bryant was
On January 19, 2026, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton issued a blistering 74-page advisory opinion asserting the unconstitutionality of many common diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives in both the public and private sectors. While the opinion at times veers more towards policy signaling than fresh legal analysis, employers should take note, especially where it
The Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) may not be the first employment law that comes to mind when an employer wants to reduce legal risks and avoid potential pitfalls. However, the FCRA has a number of requirements that employers must follow when obtaining background checks. As one recent case highlights, these requirements are important to
Update: The EEOC voted 2-1 along party lines to rescind the 2024 Enforcement Guidance on Harassment in the Workplace in its entirety. The EEOC’s objections to the guidance primarily related to the sections of the guidance regarding harassment based on sexual orientation and gender identity, including with respect to preferred pronouns and bathroom access. However
While the EEOC had a quiet 2025 due to its lack of a quorum (only two of five commissioners) and the lengthy government shutdown, there is potential change on the horizon. One area of interest for the EEOC is its Enforcement Guidance on Harassment in the Workplace issued in 2024. We blogged about that 2024