On Thursday, February 20, 2020 at 1:00 PM Eastern, Aaron R. Gelb and Daniel C. Deacon will present a complimentary webinar regarding “Illinois and DC Area State Law Update.”

The New Year brings a host of changes and challenges for Illinois employers as the legislature passed and Governor Pritzker signed, in 2019, a variety of new labor and employment laws that go into effect in 2020. These new laws promise to keep employers busy as they revise and update employee handbooks, develop new training programs, reevaluate their arbitration agreements and deal with the decriminalization of marijuana. Beginning in January 2020, employers will be faced with an expanded Illinois Human Rights Act that applies beyond the physical workplace, covers non-employee contractors and protects against discrimination based on perceived (in addition to actual) protected status. There are also special new rules that apply to restaurants, bars and coffee shops as well as disclosure requirements that will necessitate notifying the Department of Human Rights of adverse judgments in employment discrimination or harassment matters. The Victims’ Economic Security and Safety Act has also been amended and a recently signed “trailer bill” has clarified what employers should do if they wish to prohibit the use of marijuana as part of their workplace drug and alcohol policy.

Likewise, the District of Columbia has enacted or is considering a host of changes that employers need to keep track of in 2020.  D.C.’s Tipped Wage Workers Fairness Amendment Act of 2018 imposes certain training and notice requirements on all employers of tipped employees.  The deadline to implement that training and to provide the requisite notice, however, has not yet been determined, as a majority of the Act’s requirements have not been approved through budget funding, including those related to mandatory sexual harassment training. The only provisions of the Act that are currently in effect, besides the repeal of the Minimum Wage Amendment Act of 2018 / Ballot Initiative 77, are related to employee and manager training on D.C.’s Minimum Wage Act Revision Act and third-party payroll and wage reporting requirements.  Furthermore, under D.C.’s Paid Leave Act, private sector employers began paying a .62% tax on July 1, 2019 to fund paid-leave benefits.  Beginning on July 1, 2020, eligible employees will be eligible for paid leave benefits under the law, which provides up to eight weeks of paid parental leave to bond with a new child, six weeks of paid family leave to care for an ill family member with a serious health condition, and two weeks of paid medical leave to care for one’s own serious health condition.  July 1, 2020 also marks the date that the D.C. Minimum Wage will increase to $15.00 per hour.  Finally, the D.C. City Council is considering two bills that would eliminate marijuana testing of employees at work.

Participants in this webinar will learn:

• What type of harassment training must be provided to employees and when;

• Which policies and procedures should be reviewed and/or revised;

• What steps Illinois employers should take if they wish to continue drug testing for cannabis;

• What they can and cannot do with respect salary inquiries and employee discussions about wages;

• Potential changes to D.C. drug testing laws

• Tips to comply with D.C.’s Tipped Wage Workers Fairness Amendment Act of 2018, the Paid Leave Act, and the increased minimum wage

This program is valid for 1.00 PDCs for the SHRM-CPSM or SHRM-SCPSM.

Click here to register for the February 20th webinar.  This will be the 2nd webinar event in Conn Maciel Carey’s 2020 Labor and Employment Webinar Series.  Click here to view our full schedule, detailed program descriptions, and individual registration pages for all of the webinars in the 2020 Labor and Employment Webinar Series.  To register for all of Conn Maciel Carey’s Labor and Employment webinars, click here to send an email request to info@connmaciel.com , and we will get you automatically registered.  If you missed any of our past webinars in our annual Labor and Employment Webinar Series, here is a link to Conn Maciel Carey’s webinar archive.