Roundup: Chicago paid leave; Travel time; Vaccine mandates; Opiates; AI and wage hour issues

Hooray for do-overs! Chicago passed an ambitious paid leave law that was going into effect January 1, 2024.

They've backed up, made some changes, and extended the effective date until July 1, 2024. The biggest changes are clarifying who it applies to—both employer size and how many employees—and how to count.

Is travel time paid work time? You already know the answer because this is wage hour law and the answer is always the same. It depends.

Why does it have to be so complicated? Well, because time is not really money and money is definitely not time, unless they are . (Ducks for cover.)

The Texas legislature recently fired shots by prohibiting employers from requiring employees to be vaccinated.

Fired shots. Want me to tell it again? No? Fine.

Human brains are amazing and magical things that rewire, respond, and shift in response to how they are treated and cared for. But recovery from addiction takes some time, healing, and a lot of change.

This is a great series by Fred Bissinger at Ford Harrison on recognizing and addressing opiate addiction at work.

After the machines completely take over and humans just have meetings and do emails all day . . . wait—a bunch of us are there already. Sigh. But hey, the engagement scores are holding steady, so all must be well.

Big technological changes to things we are doing now always brings new ways of doing things.