The Workplace Report with Ancel Glink

The Illinois Supreme Court recently issued a narrow opinion weighing in on the definition of home offices. In Tabirta v. Cummings , Plaintiff, a truck driver, was driving through the State of Ohio when another truck driver collided with the plaintiff. Plaintiff suffered serve injuries causing him to lose both of his legs. The defendant driver is an employee of the Gilster-Mary Lee Corporation (GML), which is a food manufacturing company located incorporated in Missouri but is headquartered in Chester, Illinois located in Randolph County. Plaintiff filed suit in Cook County, Illinois. GML challenged the suit stating that venue was improper, which means Cook County was not the proper place to file the suit because that is not where the action took place nor did GML have any contacts with Cook County related to the lawsuit. Plaintiff argued that he could file and litigate the suit in Cook County because GML maintained an “other office” in the county. Plaintiff discovered that GML employed...

It's that time of year again... No, not the crinkling of dry leaves or heavenly smells of pumpkin spice lattes-it's election time, which means it's time to dust off that social media policy! Elections pose a unique challenge to human resource departments and employment attorneys. Although we unequivocally support an employee's right to exercise their civic duty and participate in the electoral process, employers should be mindful of the workplace issues that may arise around elections. This year is particularly notable because (1) this will likely be a contentious election spanning multiple days (and perhaps weeks), and (2) the election is taking place during a global pandemic-thus prompting employees to shift any discussions from now-empty offices to social media. The U.S. Constitution protects our rights to engage in free speech and assembly. In the employment context, however, free speech rights have been tailored to balance workers' rights and consider an employ...

Last month, the U.S. Department of Labor issued guidance about remote timekeeping that employers should take a look at. You can view the guidance by clicking here . As we have previously discussed , employees who make less than $684 per week and perform white-collar work must be paid for all authorized time they spend performing duties in the scope of their employment. This has always presented a challenge to employers, as what constitutes authorized time can sometimes be unclear. Courts have generally found that it includes all time that the employee spent performing job duties that the employer knew or should have known about. Tracking authorized time can be more difficult when employees work from home. To deal with this we have encouraged employers to develop remote timekeeping policies to keep track of employee time spent working from home. Ideally, this would include an electronic system that employees can log into at the start of their day and log out of at the end of it and tha...

The following is a re-post of an article  from  The Municipal Minute , an Ancel Glink local government blog edited  by  Julie Tappendorf   ... Last week, an Illinois circuit court issued a ruling in the case brought by the Illinois Municipal League (IML) against the State of Illinois to challenge the recent statute making November 3, 2020 (Election Day) a state holiday and requiring local government offices to close. The IML had argued that it was an unfunded mandate to municipalities, and the circuit court agreed in its ruling last week. We have been asked whether the ruling extends beyond the two municipalities that were named as plaintiffs in the case (Southern View and Bolingbrook) to apply to other local governments. The ruling states that the statutory amendment that requires government offices to close on Election Day (i.e., Section 2B-10) "does not apply to local governments such as municipalities - including those municipalities that are members of IML ...