WIRTW #815 (the 'vote' edition)

Yesterday morning, my wife, son, and I voted.

Do you know the rules around providing time off to your employees to vote?

In Ohio, you can't fire an employee for taking a reasonable amount of time to vote on Election Day. You can't threaten to do so, either.

In fact, 27 other states and Washington, D.C. have similar laws.

The Ohio statute is short. No set number of hours. No advance notice from the employee. No posting requirement. Just "reasonable."

Pay is where employers get tripped up. The Ohio Attorney General has said you don’t have to pay hourly employees for voting time, but you can’t dock a salaried employee’s pay for it.

The statute also does more than protect the trip to the polls. It bars you from requiring an employee to go with you to vote. It bars you from refusing to let an employee serve as an election official. And it bars you from using threats or intimidation to push someone to vote, or not vote, a certain way.

The penalty is $50 to $500. That's a small fine. The story about the employer who fired someone for voting is not small and has the potential to do way more reputational damage to your business.

Election Day is November 3. Tell your managers now, not at 4:45 that afternoon when an employee asks to leave early.

Ohio has early voting, so point your employees toward it. But if someone needs time on Election Day, don't make them argue for it.

And if your business is outside Ohio or you have employees located outside Ohio, check those states. Many require paid time off. Some require you to post a notice about it.

Voting leave is one of the few employment leave laws you can explain in a sentence. There is no excuse not to follow it.

Here's what I read this week that you should read, too.

Your Chatbot Can't Keep a Secret: Why Employers Still Need Lawyers (For Now) — Dan Schwartz's Connecticut Employment Law Blog

Could Your HR Chatbot Leak Sensitive Data? — EntertainHR

Leaders Need to Grapple with Employee Ambivalence on AI — Harvard Business Review

Keeping up with the evolving landscape of trade secret law in the wake of AI — Fair Competition Law

Inside Anthropic, Every Employee Now Manages Agents — TLNT

How Law Schools Are Teaching Students to Use AI Responsibly — Indisputably

Bad HR Isn't the Real Problem. CEOs Who Blame HR for Their Decisions Are — Improve Your HR by Suzanne Lucas, the Evil HR Lady

All or Nothing? Second Circuit Clarifies Scope of Sexual Harassment Arbitration Law — Employment Law Worldview

EEOC moves to rescind enforcement guidance on criminal background checks — Staffing Industry Analysts

Instacart settles federal claims of discrimination against US-born job seekers — AP