Coronavirus Update 6–24–2020: Are employees taking paid leave under the FFCRA?

According to a recent poll conducted by the National Partnership for Women & Families, less than one in five employees have either taken or plan to take paid sick or paid family leave under the FFCRA. Of the 19 percent who has actually taken, or intend to take, paid FFCRA leave:

• 9 percent say they are using new leave protections for their own illness or isolation. 
• 8 percent say they are using new leave protections due to a family member’s isolation/illness. 
• 7 percent say they are using new leave protections to care for a child due to child care or school closure. 
• 6 percent said they took leave, but not because of the new policy. 

Coronavirus Update 6–23–2020: Must you accommodate an employee with a high-risk family member?

A bit of personal news: I have requested the opportunity to work from home for the fall semester because of my daughter’s heart condition. I found out this afternoon that it was rejected because it is my child’s condition and not mine.

— Jason Helms (@helmstreet) June 17, 2020

One of the questions I have received most from clients during this pandemic comes in some variation of the following: "An employee [does not want to come into work / wants to work from home / wants a leave of absence] because s/he lives with someone who is at high risk for coronavirus complications. What do we do?"

In other words, must you accommodate an employee for the employee's close family member's disability?

Coronavirus Update 6–22–2020: Ohio ends unemployment benefits to employees who refuse to work (with some key exceptions)

The state of Ohio will begin denying unemployment benefits to employees who refuse to work because of coronavirus. 

Governor DeWine issued an Executive Order last week directing the Ohio Department of Jobs and Family Services to deny unemployment benefits to employees who refuse to return to work after recall to the same position held before the state's Stay at Home Order took effect.

Coronavirus Update 6–19–2020: How to communicate when an employee tests positive

Positive COVID-19 tests are sadly the reality of 2020, and likely at least part of 2021. Nationally, 2.23 million of us have tested positive for coronavirus. If your employees have been fortunate enough so far to avoid the virus, the odds are good that before this pandemic is over one or more of your employees will test positive.

Before we discuss the right way to communicate a potential workplace exposure to your employees, let's explore the wrong way, via one of my favorite punching bags, the WWE. 

Coronavirus Update 6–18–2020: Errata—employers cannot require antibody tests of employees, says EEOC

Two months ago I suggested that the EEOC would conclude that employers could require COVID-19 antibody tests as a condition of employment. Yesterday, based on updated guidance from the CDC, the EEOC said the exact opposite. Given the inherent unreliability of COVID-19 antibody tests, I'm happy to have been wrong.

Does Title VII protect employees whose spouses are pregnant?

A male Disney employee has filed suit against his former employer, claiming that Disney unlawfully discriminated against him because of his wife's pregnancy. 

According to Steven Van Soeren's complaint, Disney fired him after he took two weeks of paternity leave following the birth of his child, and after supervisors advised him during his wife's pregnancy on the wisdom of having a child. (As an aside, Van Soeren claims that his supervisors learned of the pregnancy by hacking his computer.)

Everything you need to know about Bostock v. Clayton County—the #SCOTUS LGBTQ discrimination decision—in five quotes

June is Pride Month. If you thought the month's biggest LGBTQ news was Nickelodeon tweeting that SpongeBob was part of the LGBTQ+ community, you have another thing coming. Yesterday, in Bostock v. Clayton County, the United States Supreme Court clearly, decisively, and unequivocally held:

 

An employer who fires an individual merely for being gay or transgender violates Title VII.

The Bostock majority opinion is 33 pages long. I'll break it down for you in five key quotes.