After much anticipation, the White House announced plans to rescind the geographic COVID-19 travel bans and modify restrictions on all international travelers to focus on proof of vaccination. In place of the travel bans and beginning in early November, international travelers will be required to prove they have been fully vaccinated against COVID-19, as well as provide proof of a negative COVID-19 test within three days of boarding a U.S. bound flight. The Centers for…

In October 2019, California enacted a new law, AB 51, that on its face prohibits mandatory arbitration clauses in employment contracts. As expected, the law was immediately challenged in federal court. In the latest installment of the law’s journey through the courts, a split Ninth Circuit panel vacated a 2020 preliminary injunction that had forestalled implementation of the bill. If the decision stands, California employers will no longer be able to require their employees or…

There has been surprisingly little in the press around what is going to happen when the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme ends on 30 September.  Will there be the jobs Armageddon that some have forecast, or will roles for the million or so people still on furlough at the end of August reappear in time to avoid that?  And at a more granular level on the same topic, here is the next question from our What…

From our Capital Thinking blog, our public policy colleague Stacy Swanson shares the latest federal employment law developments in in the legislative and executive branches during the week of September 6, 2021. *** This is a weekly post spotlighting labor topics in focus by the US legislative and executive branches during the previous week. In this issue, we cover: Reconciliation Package Updates COVID-19 Updates Teacher Unions Press the Administration TSA Employees Seek Greater Bargaining…

At the end of our What Next webinar this week I announced boldly that either we had had no questions from the floor or I had done something hideous to the IT and lost them. With depressing predictability it was the latter, sorry.  In fact we got a good score of questions across a wide range of RTO issues.  Combining one or two which covered the same ground, the answers start here and will continue over…

It has been nine months since the first person in the United States received the COVID-19 vaccine, and ever since then, employers have been weighing the pros and cons of whether to require that employees be vaccinated as a condition of employment. On September 9, 2021, President Biden narrowed the options for many employers when he announced a six-pronged, comprehensive COVID-19 Action Plan (“Plan”), which in part, requires that larger employers ensure that their workforce…