Teresa McQueen is Corporate Counsel for Western Growers. In that capacity she provides advice and counsel to the organization on employment law matters and commercial trade practices. She also provides legal guidance to Western Growers members on employment law, human resources, and commercial agreements, as well as providing law-related educational opportunities and overseeing annual updates […]
The U.S. Supreme Court, in resolving a split among various Circuit courts, set a new standard for the amount of harm a plaintiff must demonstrate to bring an employment-related discrimination claim under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (Title VII). Over the years various Circuit courts have applied differing levels of the requisite harm required to show discrimination, resulting in…
An April 8, 2024, Memorandum issued by National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) General Counsel, Jennifer Abruzzo (General Counsel), advises regional offices to push the NLRB to pursue “the full panoply of remedies available to ensure that victims of unlawful conduct are made whole for losses suffered as a result of unfair labor practices.” A key focus of the memo is the General Counsel’s…
The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) has issued its final rule implementing the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act (PWFA). As discussed here, the PWFA requires most employers with 15 or more employees to provide “reasonable accommodations,” or changes at work, for a worker’s known limitations related to pregnancy, childbirth, or related medical conditions, unless the…
Upcoming pay data reporting obligations in California have many employers struggling to gather and report employee race and ethnicity data. As a reminder, the filing deadline for employers with 100 or more employees is May 8, 2024. One of the biggest stumbling blocks for reporting accurate pay data is the question of how employers are to gather the required information. The California…
The California Privacy Protection Agency (Agency) is responsible for creating and enforcing California’s Privacy Rights Act (CPRA) regulations that took effect March 29, 2024. As discussed here, the CPRA amended and expanded the California Consumer Protection Act (CCPA) by, among other things, giving consumers the right to correct inaccurate personal information collected by a covered…
The recent California case Vazquez v. Sanisure, Inc., provides an important lesson on one of the basic premises of arbitration; an arbitration agreement is tied to the underlying contract containing it and as such it can be revoked on the same grounds as exist for the revocation of any contract. Initially hired by the company in 2019, employee Vazquez signed, as part of the hiring process, an…
California Senate Bill 553 amended the California Labor Code to create new requirements for addressing workplace violence. These new requirements include a July 1, 2024 effective date for employers to establish and implement an effective Workplace Violence Prevention Plan (WVPP). As discussed here, to assist employers in meeting this regulatory deadline, the California Division of…
A U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia has refused to enforce a National Labor Relations Board (Board) finding of unfair labor practices calling out the Board’s rational as “nonsense.” In the case Stern Produce Company Inc., v. NLRB the Court found the employer’s actions had not created the impression of surveilling union organizing activity nor risen to the level of…
The federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) has finalized a new rule allowing workers to designate a third-party representative to accompany any OSHA inspector during a facility inspection. Because the rule does not require the representative to be a company employee or the facility to be unionized, the opportunity for union representatives to fill the role is concerning. As…
