Maintain Powerful Relationships in a Global Pandemic

The Federal Arbitration Act strongly favors arbitration and acts as a federal mandate requiring state and federal courts to do the same. However, an exception in Section 1 of the FAA circumvents arbitration clauses in “contracts of employment of seamen, railroad employees, or any other class of workers engaged in foreign or interstate commerce.” What… More ›

The California legislature has introduced two bills that, if enacted, will significantly change how employment claims are resolved under the state’s Private Attorneys General Act and create major new incentives for staffing companies to focus on compliance to reduce their exposure to such claims. The legislation is a result of negotiations between business groups, labor… More ›

In Connecticut, Gov. Ned Lamont has signed into law HB 5005, a series of amendments to the state’s paid sick leave law. The amendments, including a recission of the exclusion of temporary employees from the state’s paid sick leave mandate, go into effect Jan 1. 2025. In 2012, Connecticut became the first state to enact… More ›

The Illinois legislature has amended the Day and Temporary Labor Services Act that makes significant changes in the law’s equal pay provisions and other rules. The amendment passed May 24 and will become effective upon signing by Gov. JB Pritzker. The act, which generally covers industrial labor—excluding clerical and professional—was amended in 2023 to require,… More ›

ASA has asserted a new claim in the lawsuit filed last year to overturn the New Jersey Temporary Workers’ Bill of Rights Act. The law requires, among other things, that staffing agencies provide their employees with pay and benefits equivalent to those provided to client employees performing similar work. As originally filed, the suit alleged… More ›

Josh Skundenberg, Locke Lord LLP On March 11, a federal judge in Chicago issued an injunction barring the state of Illinois from forcing staffing agencies to alter their existing employee benefit plans to instead provide their employees with benefits “equivalent” to those benefits offered by staffing agencies’ clients. In August 2023, Gov. JB Pritzker signed… More ›