Roundup: Privacy and recording employees; DEI training; Monitoring discrimination risk; Menstrual pain and the ADA; New pay equity laws; Criminal liability for wage violations
Salary.com Compensation and Pay Equity Law Review
Welcome to Salary.com's Compensation and Pay Equity Law Review.
Our editor, employment lawyer Heather Bussing, is tracking legislation, cases, and analysis to give you the latest critical HR topics. She and Kent Plunkett, CEO of Salary.com, also have a new book out on Pay Equity, Get Pay Right: How to Achieve Pay Equity that Works!
This week we're asking these questions and even answering most of them:
- Do you even remember what it's like to be in the world without being watched or recorded?
- Do you know the rules on when it's okay to record people at work?
- How do you make DEI initiatives inclusive?
- Have we been focused on the wrong thing in addressing discrimination?
- Is severe pain from menstruation a disability under the ADA?
- What new state employment laws go into effect in July 2025?
- Why are states imposing criminal liability for wage and hour violations?
Remember Privacy?
We should not get so used to recording and being recorded that we don't remember there are laws about when it's okay to record and when it's not. And those laws usually depend on whether the person knows they are being recorded and whether they say it's okay, either with words or by doing nothing after they know. Here's a great explanation from Seyfarth.
How to Create an Inclusive DEI Training Program. Or not.
We don't have to agree to do great work together. Instead, we need to focus on outcomes. My advice is quit trying to address the cause of discrimination and start monitoring what is actually happening in our organizations. Then fix it.
Periods, Pain, and the ADA
We do not ask employees to work when they are experiencing excruciating pain. And that is best for everyone. And that is why severe pain during an employee's period can be a disability under the Americans With Disabilities Act.
Guide to New State Employment Laws Effective July 1
There are big pay equity legal updates for Vermont and Washington. Vermont employers must begin to post the pay in job ads. Washington is expressly including all of its protected classes in its pay equity laws, not just gender.
When It's Get Pay Right or Else
Wage "theft" usually happens when someone tries to get nonexempt employees to do more work for less money. The edict comes down to reduce overtime. Corporate has frozen or limited new headcount. And the work can't get done without hiring more people or people working more hours, often both. Now, there may be criminal liability.
