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The Massachusetts Paid Family and Medical Leave (“PFML”) law now permits employees to “top off” benefits received through the state Department of Family and Medical Leave (“DFML”) with employer-provided accrued paid time off (e.g., vacation, PTO, or sick time).  This new change allows employees to elect whether to supplement their PFML benefits with paid time off.  Employers still cannot require employees to use their accrued paid leave either before or while on PFML; it is up to employees to elect whether or not to supplement their PFML benefits with paid time off.  This change was part of the recently passed fiscal year 2024 budget and is in effect for all new applications for PFML benefits as of November 1, 2023.Continue Reading Massachusetts Employees May Now Top Off Paid Family and Medical Leave Benefits with Vacation, PTO, and Sick Time

The Massachusetts Department of Family and Medical Leave has issued proposed regulations which are scheduled to go into effect July 1, 2019.

Although some of the proposed regulations may change – and there is a push on by certain business groups to have the start date pushed to October – businesses are well advised to…

In follow up to my June 19, 2017 post regarding the trials and tribulations of the workplace culture (among other issues) at Uber, it now appears that the previously announced leave of absence of CEO Travis Kalanick is permanent.  Kalanick, amid significant pressures from investors, has tendered his resignation.   The embattled executive, still a major shareholder, will remain on the board of directors.
Continue Reading Uber Update: Kalanick Resigns as CEO

As an attorney who counsels employers through difficult personnel issues, I am often asked, sometimes even in general conversation, what issues are the “hottest” and most frequent I see in my practice. For the past several years, the task of integrating and returning disabled employees to the workplace is at the top of the list;…

Photo: Public Domain
Photo: Public Domain

Typically with an incoming administration there is a waiting period of sorts before changes in pending and certainly existing regulations kick in.  The current administration, however, appears to be working at an accelerated pace toward upending the status quo.  So, it appears time for a quick check-in on where we are and what to expect.

On Inauguration day, White House Chief of Staff Reince Priebus Jan. 20 instructed federal agencies to freeze all pending regulations, a move that seems to include a number of labor and employment initiatives that were in the works under the Obama administration.

This type of freeze is not unusual when a new president takes office.  An action of this nature does not necessarily mean that significant changes are coming, but given candidate Trump’s campaign promise to roll back regulation on business, we can at least predict that the administration will be in no rush to move on the pending matters.
Continue Reading Two Weeks Into the Trump Administration: Where are we with Labor and Employment Regulations?

Photo: William Brawley via Flickr (CC by 2.0)
Photo: William Brawley via Flickr (CC by 2.0)

Last week, a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit upheld the dismissal of a suit filed by construction-industry employers and their trade associations seeking to block enforcement of the Massachusetts Earned Sick Time Law in settings where…