Our Blog: Employment Law

Illinois Expands Leave Protections for Employees

We are pleased to report that on Friday, July 29, 2016, Illinois enacted the Child Bereavement Leave Act, which took immediate effect as new law, expanding leave protections for Illinois employees by allowing qualifying employees to elect ten days of unpaid bereavement leave upon suffering the death of a child.

This law is a major stride forward …

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An Employee’s Guide to Chicago’s New Paid Sick Leave Ordinance

We are thrilled to report that Chicago has joined the growing ranks of local governments ensuring paid sick leave for local employees!  This is a huge victory for single parents and low wage workers who, prior to this ordinance, were regularly faced with the awful risk of losing pay or, worse …

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Doubling the overtime income threshold will make hundreds of thousands of new employees entitled to overtime pay.

Vice President, Joe Biden, says the “middle class is getting clobbered” and predicts the Department of Labor’s revised overtime regulations (which are expected to be signed today) should go a long way to fixing that.

Amending the Department of Labor’s overtime regulations has been on President Obama’s …

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A Mother’s Day Shout Out in Celebration of the Parent Friendly Workplace!

There is a whole lot to say about the shortcomings of American workplace policies and laws as they apply to working parents and, particularly, working mothers.  And from time to time, we join the chorus in calling out those problems.  But today, with Mother’s Day around the corner, we at CLF …

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City Task Force Recommends that Chicago Employers Adopt 5 Days of Paid Sick Leave Annually

Last February 2015, 82 percent of Chicago voters supported a non-binding city referendum to adopt paid sick leave for workers. After this, the City formed a task force, called the Working Families Task Force, consisting of 27 members representing business, government, and employee advocacy interests to …

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On January 29, 2016, the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (“EEOC”) announced a major proposed regulation change that would increase pay transparency for employers with 100 or more employees and help fight pay inequities based on a person’s protected status.

The EEOC is the government agency responsible for enforcing the federal anti-discrimination laws, including the laws that prohibit discrimination based on …

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Making a formal internal complaint of inappropriate conduct in the workplace can be a scary proposition. So many employees are worried about whether they will be taken seriously, whether they’ll be perceived as a whiner or overly-sensitive, and – perhaps most scary of all – whether they will be retaliated against or pushed out of the workplace for taking a …

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With new generations emerging in the workforce, shifts in corporate thinking have begun to occur that have many talking. One of those shifts is toward the adoption of greater transparency between management and employees.  The thinking about transparency has started to change in one particularly controversial area: employee salaries.

Most companies treat compensation information as one of the most strictly protected, …

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Tech Companies Led the Way Expanding Paid Parental Leave Policies in 2015

Other Employers Should Now Follow  

The tech industry is famous for setting trends in providing innovative perks and benefits to employees. In the second half of 2015, this pioneering spirit continued for the tech industry as a craze began among highly visible companies to expand their paid parental leave policies.

Although …

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Study Finds that Older Women Face More Discrimination than Older Men

A lot has been written lately about women’s continued struggle for equal pay and opportunities in the workplace.  Nothing about those struggles is surprising.  However, a recent study shows that as women age in the workforce, things become worse for them.  Not only are they experiencing gender discrimination, but age …

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