The Workplace Report with Ancel Glink

The State of Illinois has 6,963 units of local government, by far the largest number of units of local government in any state in the Union.  Texas is second, with 5,147.  Of neighboring states to Illinois, Missouri has the largest number of units of local government, with 3,768.  The result is that Illinois residents end up paying taxes to support multiple jurisdictions that supply overlapping or easily consolidated services.  With a median effective property tax rate of 2.32% of market home value per year, Illinois residents pay the second—highest property tax rate in the country.   Delivering Efficient, Effective, and Streamlined Government to Illinois Taxpayers , Task Force on Local Government Consolidation and Unfunded Mandates (December 17, 2015), p. 3. It is with these facts in mind that Illinois has embarked on a slow but sure road toward consolidation of local governments.  The first major target of consolidation has been consolidation of emer...

The EEOC recently released a publication entitled “ Depression, PTSD, & Other Mental Health Conditions in the Workplace: Your Legal Rights ” which employers might want to check out. You can access the publication by clicking here . The publication discusses a number of issues that employers should keep in mind when they deal with employees who suffer from mental health issues. Some of these include:  1. Employers need to provide “reasonable accommodations” to employees with mental health conditions. The Americans with Disabilities Act prohibits an employer from taking negative action against an employee due to the employee’s disability. The ADA defines disability broadly, and it includes virtually every recognized mental health condition.  The ADA also requires employers to provide disabled employees with a “reasonable accommodation” that permits the employee to continue working despite his or her disability. Providing an employee with a reasonable accommodati...

Coming to a Municipality Near You: The Labor and Employment Attorneys of Ancel Glink are Here to Prepare You For New Employment Law Changes  When:  February 16, 2017 8:30 a.m. to 11:15 a.m. Where:   Heartland Community College, 1500 West Raab Road, Normal, IL 61761 Who:  All local governmental officials, managers, administrators or directors  What: As we get settled into the New Year, employers need to be aware of new employment laws that have recently become effective, or soon will be.  Further, employers should also be aware of the important cases to keep tabs on and what to expect under the Trump administration.  Luckily, the labor and employment attorneys of Ancel Glink are here to help. In our no-cost "breakfast briefing," the labor and employment attorneys from Ancel Glink , a premiere Illinois local government law firm, will explain the new laws and how to apply them to your employees so that you stay in compliance wi...

The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) received a record number of complaints from LGBT employees last year, according to data recently released by that agency. The Commission, which enforces federal employment laws, has been arguing that Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, which prohibits discrimination based on gender, prohibits discrimination against LGBT employees. While this position has been largely rejected by the courts, the EEOC  continues to maintain it . EEOC data shows that the Commission received 1,768 charges of discrimination from LGBT employees , a 25% increase over 2015 and an over 100% increase from 2013. The EEOC attributes the increase in the claims it has received to greater awareness by employees of how the Commission can aid them in actions against their employers. The EEOC data also shows that the total number of charges it received in 2016 was up by about 2%, from 89,385 to 91,503 . This is down for its peak of nearly 100,000 in 2011. D...

You’re a City Manager. It’s Friday. You’re tired. You had a seven (7!) hour Board meeting on Tuesday. Yesterday, your assistant told you she was transgender and now wants to be your new male assistant.  Now you have to see what that new transgender policy that Ancel Glink wrote for you says about the “transition period.” So much going on and there’s a snowstorm on the way over the weekend, so you drop by public works to see your streets superintendent and make sure that all is right with the snow removal plans.  You walk into his office at 2:30 p.m. and find him drinking Jack Daniels from his coffee cup.  The bottle is still on his desk.  He is reading Penthouse magazine.  He looks over the magazine and says, “Hi Bob (your name is Bill).  Want a snort?”  You politely decline, and he asks if you want to see this “chick” in the magazine.  You tell him this is inappropriate behavior, to which he responds, “Lighten up dude.  It’s ...

The following is Part II of a two-part series that identifies cases and issues that we anticipate will have a considerable impact on the labor and employment field in the coming year. 1.  Right-to-Work Litigation Right-to-Work proponents were dealt a setback when the U.S. Supreme Court virtually punted in its 4-4 order in Friedrichs v. California Teachers Association that concerned the issue of whether public employees who do not join a union can be required to pay an “agency” or “fair share” fee to cover costs that the union incurs, for example, for collective bargaining. But efforts to pass Right-to-Work legislation are far from dead. In various public statements and tweets, the President-elect has indicated preference for Right-to-Work laws. And the Vice President-elect passed Right-to-Work legislation while governor of Indiana. Notwithstanding, there are two cases still pending in Illinois over a Right-to-Work issues that should have unions concerned. The first is...

2016 proved to be invigorating for the labor and employment field. 2017, however, is likely to be more contentious and not simply because of the transition to the Trump administration. While many anticipate a shift towards management-friendly decisions and regulations, the following is Part I of a two-part series that identifies cases and issues that we anticipate will have a considerable impact on the labor and employment field in the coming year. 1.  The DOL Final Overtime Rule - State of Nevada et. al. v. U.S. Department of Labor With only a few days until the U.S. Department of Labor’s (“DOL”) final overtime rule was to become effective, a U.S. District Court Judge in Texas issued a nationwide injunction against the new regulation expanding by millions the number of workers who would be eligible for overtime pay. Prior to the injunction, employers had been moving quickly to prepare for implementation of the DOL final overtime rule that was scheduled to take effect on...

Do you have an underperforming or misbehaving employee whom you are thinking about disciplining? Has this employee recently filed a complaint with the EEOC or Illinois Human Rights Commission? If so, you may want to consider delaying your decision to discipline the employee to avoid giving the employee a reason to claim that he or she was retaliated against. A recent case from the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals, Maria Gracia v. Sigmatron International , offers an example of why this is. Gracia was an employee at Sigmatron, a large manufacturer. She alleged that her boss sent her sexually suggestive photographs and called her at her house. When she did not reciprocate his interest, he began to write her citations for being tardy to work. Gracia had an exemplary work history prior to this, and went to HR to complain that she was being sexually harassed. HR and the company did essentially nothing, so she filed a complaint with the EEOC. Two weeks after she filed this complaint, she w...

Sometimes employment policies don’t hold all employees to the same standards (says the blogger on an employment blog). But it’s hard to discern when a policy is unfairly favoring groups within groups of people. And where does it end? Groups within groups, within groups, can turn out to be the something from Alice in Wonderland. But turning back to reality, the 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals recently addressed this question relative to the Age Discrimination in Employment Act (ADEA). The ADEA protects employees from discrimination who are 40 and above. The question that surfaces is whether an age discrimination, disparate impact, claim is cognizable when a subgroup of people allege that they are disfavored relative to others also covered by the ADEA. The Third Circuit Court of Appeals answered this question in the affirmative. In the case Karlo v. Pittsburgh Glass Works, LLC, the Plaintiffs were 50 and above and they were released as a result of a company-wide RIF (Reduction In F...

The Family and Medical Leave Act entitles eligible employees to take up to twelve (12) work weeks of leave during a twelve (12) month period for qualifying reasons, including care for a child who has a serious health condition. In Wink v. Miller Compressing Company , the Seventh Circuit US Court of Appeals upheld a Judgment in favor of Tracy L. Wink against her former employer, Miller Compressing Company, for retaliation in violation of the Family Medical Leave Act (FMLA).  Miller terminated Wink after demanding she work at the office five (5) days per week.  Wink had previously worked at home two (2) days per week in order to care for her autistic child.  Wink’s child had been expelled from daycare because of his aggressive behavior, a product of his autism.  Wink’s mother watched the child the remaining three (3) work days. Miller’s Human Resource officer incorrectly told Wink that FMLA only covers doctor appointments and therapy.  Wink was told on ...

Right-to-Work proponents were dealt a setback when the U.S. Supreme Court virtually punted in its 4-4 order in Friedrichs v. California Teachers Association that concerned the issue of whether public employees who do not join a union can be required to pay an “agency” or “fair share” fee to cover costs that the union incurs, for example, for collective bargaining. But efforts to pass Right-to-Work legislation are far from dead. And as we previously discussed, the U.S. Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals unanimously ruled last month in United Auto Workers v. Hardin County that Kentucky’s home rule local governments constitute a political subdivision of their state and, therefore, may implement right-to-work laws, which prohibit employers from requiring union membership or the payment of monies as a condition of employment, and are not preempted from doing so by the National Labor Relations Act. The import of Hardin is that even if the state legislature chooses not to enact right-to-work l...

If an employee suffers from a disability that prevents him from doing his job, the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) requires an employer to provide that employee with a “reasonable accommodation.” This means that the employer must take measures to allow the employee to continue working despite his disability. For example, an employer must allow an employee with a broken leg to sit down at work, as long as this does not interfere with the employee’s ability to perform his job duties. However, what if an employee’s disability makes him unable to perform his current job, but does allow him to perform another job for the employer that is currently vacant? Does the employer have to reassign the employee to the vacant position? Or can the employer require the disabled employee to apply for the position, and only hire him if he is the best candidate for the job? A federal appellate court just provided an answer. A nurse in a psychiatric ward developed a debilitating back conditi...

On December 30, 2016, the Illinois Supreme Court made the New Year a little happier for employers dealing with the high costs of PSEBA (Public Safety Employee Benefits Act) benefits.  In Bremer v. City of Rockford , the court held that the phrase “catastrophic injury” is not synonymous with a disease resulting in the award of an occupational disease disability pension.  This is rather surprising, given that this is the same court that gave us Krohe v. City of Bloomington which defined “catastrophic injury” as being synonymous with a line-of-duty pension under section 4-110 of the Illinois Pension Code.  While I have never agreed with the holding in Krohe , I think that Bremer is a step in the right direction. In Bremer , a firefighter applied for an occupational disease disability pension under section 4-110.1 of the Illinois Pension Code.  The City of Rockford’s Firefighters’ Pension Board found that Bremer satisfied the statutory requirements for an occupati...

Your employee has just told you that she has just had an accident while working. What do you do-tell her to rub some dirt on it and get back to work? Uh...NO! How you respond and how thoroughly and consistently you document and report every incident will go a long way toward making sure your employees are safe and improving your chances that only compensable claims are being paid. Here is a primer for what an employer should do as soon as an accident is reported by an employee. STEP 1 : First, and of most immediate concern, is to make sure the employee gets prompt and appropriate medical attention.  The purpose for this is not just because you are a good boss and a kind and caring employer, but also to get an immediate assessment of just how injured the employee may be.  Some employers have occupational health facilities which they use to treat injured employees following industrial incidents (and also to perform annual physical and initial examinations a...

A new year often brings new or revised employment policies to go along with newly enacted laws or just to provide a fresh start for employees. One question that continues to arise is whether employers can maintain enforceable “use it or lose it” vacation policies. In August of 2014, the Illinois Department of Labor issued amendments to the Illinois Wage Payment and Collection Act regulation 300.520 .  Most of the attention focused on the new requirement that employers keep time records for exempt employees. But, another amendment to the same regulation, issued at the same time, created confusion about the viability of “use it or lose it” vacation policies. The regulation has long contained the following provisions: e)     An employment contract or an employer's policy may require an employee to take vacation by a certain date or lose the vacation, provided that the employee is given a reasonable opportunity to take the vacation.  The employer must demonstrat...

With a New Year come new laws, one of them being the Illinois Employee Sick Leave Act (the Act) that became effective on New Year’s Day. We’ve talked about the Act before but in general, the Act (820 ILCS 191) permits employees to use half of their annual accrual of sick leave time for family care purposes. The Act requires Illinois employers, who already provide sick leave benefits to their employees, to allow employees to take said leave for absences due to illness, injury or medical appointment of the employee’s child, spouse, domestic partner, sibling, parent, mother in law, grandparent, or stepparent. The sick leave absences taken by the employee are under the same terms as if the employee themselves were sick and taking leave. The thing is; there is a slight ambiguity in the Act pertaining to section 10, subsection (a) and (b). Subsection (a) allows an employee to use sick leave absences for any of the listed family members, while subsection (b) allows an employer to limit ...

The campaign to raise the minimum wage was one of the biggest issues during the past election cycle.  Both Presidential candidates supported increasing the minimum wage , and many state and local candidates expressed support for an increased minimum wage as well. While it remains somewhat unlikely that a Republican-led Congress will pass legislation increasing the federal minimum wage, twenty-one states passed legislation increasing the minimum wage. Illinois is not among those states, although both Chicago and Cook County will be increasing their minimum wage in 2017. While the minimum wage in Illinois is currently $8.25/hr for employees over 18 and $7.75/hr for employees under 18, it is scheduled to increase to $11/hr on July 1, 2017 in Chicago and to $10/hr on July 1, 2017 in suburban Cook County . Below is a chart listing the states which increased their minimum wage on January 1, comparing their 2017 minimum wage to that in 2016: States 2016 Minim...