Late Friday, Governor Lamont vetoed House Bill 5001, which I had highlighted in an earlier post as being passed during the waning hours of the legislative session. That bill would have rescinded a particular labor regulation and required the Department of Labor to promulgate a new regulation in its place. In vetoing the measure, Governor Lamont noted that the “while it may be reasonable to conclude that state and federal laws should be consistent…

As the dust continues to settle from the General Assembly, bills that didn’t get a lot of press beforehand are continuing to come into the light. One of them is new Public Act 19-95, which was just signed by Governor Lamont yesterday. The bill treats being a member of the “Civil Air Patrol” as a new protected class and prohibits an employer from discriminating against an employee because the employee is absent from…

With Independence Day nearly upon us (and with many offices on skeleton crews this week), I thought I would take a very brief look back at a case that has particular relevance to the Grand Old Flag and displays of patriotism in the workplace. If you’ve never read about Cotto v. United Technologies Corp., you should. It’s a long-forgotten Connecticut Supreme Court case from 1999 that is a cornerstone opinion in the area of…

Update: Governor Lamont vetoed this bill on July 12, 2019.   Bear with me because this is a story about how a little provision slipped in at the last minute and buried deep in a innocuously-titled bill will have big implications for the restaurant industry in Connecticut. You might have missed House Bill 5001 (now Public Act 19-198) titled “AN ACT ESTABLISHING A TASK FORCE TO STUDY WORKFORCE TRAINING NEEDS IN THE STATE.” There was no …

Do you ever watch a television series or see a Broadway musical and think about the employment law issues that are being raised? (C’mon, I can’t be the only one out there.) I was reminded of my inability to separate out fact from fiction when I went to see the Broadway-hit “Waitress” at Bushnell Performing Arts Center in Hartford recently.  It’s been a long-running production, so what was there not to like? (And to…

At the stroke of midnight last night, the 2019 General Assembly came to a close. I think it’s fair to say that 2019 will go down in history not for the number of bills impacting employers, but for the breadth of the few that passed. I’ve recapped the bills in some prior posts, but here’s what employers need to know (thus far) about this legislative session. MINIMUM WAGE The Governor has already signed the biggest increase…