[ad_1]
As the ultimate tally of ballots is available in for a lot of electoral races throughout the nation, the outcomes of the assorted state poll measures that have been additionally a part of the Nov. 8 midterm elections may require modifications to employers’ insurance policies and procedures.
Drug-free office insurance policies, wage and hour obligations, collective bargaining rights, and worker profit plans offering entry to abortion-related remedy are some areas affected by statewide poll initiatives throughout the nation.
Legalization of Marijuana, Psychedelics
Maryland and Missouri handed initiatives legalizing marijuana use for people over the age of 21. Moreover, Colorado handed an initiative to legalize psychedelic crops and fungi for people over the age of 21.
Maryland voters additionally accredited a state constitutional modification that can enable the usage of hashish by anybody over the age of 21 on or after July 1, 2023, topic to the Normal Meeting passing laws regarding the regulation, distribution, possession, and taxation of marijuana.
Missouri voters accredited an modification to the state structure on medical marijuana and leisure marijuana.
The Missouri medical marijuana regulation will allow nurse practitioners, along with physicians, to advocate medical marijuana use to their sufferers. The medical marijuana regulation nonetheless prohibits authorized claims in opposition to employers the place workers are barred from being beneath the affect of marijuana whereas at work.
New provisions require that employers not discriminate in opposition to medical marijuana customers, nonetheless, until failure to take action would outcome within the lack of financial or licensing-related advantages beneath federal regulation, or until the particular person was beneath the affect of marijuana on the employer’s premises or throughout work hours.
The modification to the Missouri structure additionally permits the leisure use of marijuana by adults aged 21 and older. Employers aren’t required to allow or accommodate the usage of marijuana at work or on their property.
Employers are permitted to take opposed employment actions if an individual is working whereas beneath the affect of marijuana. The regulation doesn’t outline the phrase “beneath the affect of marijuana” so it’s unclear whether or not employers could depend on constructive drug take a look at outcomes for marijuana to show an worker was beneath the affect.
Lastly, the brand new Missouri regulation will enable people who’re serving jail sentences for sure crimes — together with possession of as much as three kilos of marijuana — to petition the sentencing courtroom to vacate the sentence, order instant launch, and expunge the federal government’s information. Further provisions tackle expungement of prison information for individuals who beforehand served jail sentences associated to sure marijuana-related crimes.
The Missouri constitutional modification will take impact Dec. 8, 2022, 30 days after the election.
Colorado’s poll measure will decriminalize the use and possession of sure psychedelic crops and fungi as pure drugs. The state legalized the usage of marijuana in 2012.
Arkansas, North Dakota, and South Dakota poll measures looking for to legalize marijuana for people over the age of 21 all failed.
Whereas not every of those new legal guidelines particularly addresses office rights or prohibitions, employers in states like Maryland, Missouri, and Colorado that legalized marijuana and decriminalized different substances aren’t required to allow or accommodate the use, consumption, or possession of the substances within the office.
Moreover, employers in all three states should consider their drug testing insurance policies, in addition to some other insurance policies, that tackle or restrict workers’ rights to take part in authorized actions exterior of working hours.
Multistate employers could discover nationwide compliance with these new state legal guidelines a frightening job. However, employers ought to examine the necessities in every jurisdiction the place they function, in addition to any business, security or licensing-specific necessities that have an effect on drug insurance policies and testing.
Minimal Wage
The District of Columbia handed the Tip Credit score Elimination Act. Beforehand, beneath District of Columbia regulation, employers of tipped staff have been permitted to take a credit score in opposition to tipped wages obtained by staff to fulfill the minimal wage assured to all staff beneath the regulation.
Underneath the Tip Credit score Elimination Act, the tip credit score will regularly be eradicated and the bottom minimal wage elevated till 2027, when the obligatory base wage for tipped staff will match the District of Columbia’s minimal wage. Suggestions will proceed because the property of workers and will likely be along with the statutory minimal hourly wage. The primary enhance for tipped staff will happen on Jan. 1, 2023, growing tipped employee minimal wage to not lower than $6.00 an hour with suggestions.
Nebraska’s hourly minimal wage has incrementally elevated since 2015 to its present price of $9.00 per hour. The brand new regulation will increase the minimal wage in phases, ending in January 2026 with a minimal wage of $15.00. The primary enhance will take impact Jan. 1, 2023, growing the state minimal wage to $10.50.
Nevada additionally handed its initiative so as to add a minimal wage provision to the state structure. Underneath the measure, efficient July 1, 2024, the minimal wage will enhance from $10.50 to $12.00. Thereafter, if at any time the federal minimal wage is increased than $12.00, the state minimal wage ought to be elevated accordingly.
Employers might want to monitor the efficient dates of those will increase to implement methods that can guarantee compliance the place a number of changes are wanted to account for modifications that will likely be incremental over a interval of a number of years.
Employers also needs to confirm that they’re correctly calculating tipped worker wages and extra time based mostly on the brand new wage charges. That is significantly vital when offering any extra compensation or incentives, akin to shift differentials, that should be included within the common price of pay for extra time functions.
Moreover, these measures could require employers to reevaluate their total compensation construction to find out how modifications on the decrease finish of the pay scale have an effect on pay fairness within the group.
Collective Bargaining Rights
Illinois voters are projected to approve an modification to the state structure giving workers a proper to “arrange and discount collectively by way of representatives of their very own selecting for the aim of negotiating wages, hours, and dealing situations, and to guard their financial welfare and security at work.”
The measure additionally prohibits any regulation that interferes with, negates, or diminishes the suitable of workers to arrange and discount collectively.
As a result of the Nationwide Labor Relations Act already covers most non-public sector staff, the modification’s influence is mostly restricted to the general public sector, akin to state and native authorities staff. Nevertheless, the modification does prohibit a right-to-work regulation in Illinois, making it the one state so as to add a right-to-work ban in a state structure.
Alternatively, Tennessee accredited a right-to-work modification to its structure. The modification makes it unlawful for any office to require labor union membership for workers as a situation of employment. Whereas Tennessee already has a right-to-work regulation in place, it’s now the tenth state within the nation to engrain such protections to its structure.
Abortion Rights
California, Michigan, and Vermont handed poll measures that codify rights pertaining to abortion and private reproductive autonomy into these states’ constitutions.
Kentucky’s measure failed. It sought to amend the state structure to specify that it doesn’t shield or safe a proper to abortion or require funding of abortions.
Even the place there isn’t any mandate for employer motion, employers ought to observe these modifications and proceed monitoring the standing of abortion-related laws and litigation because the regulation continues to develop following the U.S. Supreme Court docket’s June resolution in Dobbs v. Jackson Girls’s Well being Group. The constitutional amendments determined in the latest election don’t foreclose new legal guidelines from being launched or handed.
Legal guidelines that have an effect on abortion rights could pertain to office insurance policies in the case of discrimination, harassment, and retaliation, in addition to insurance policies that present time without work or reimbursement for journey to a different jurisdiction for an abortion, all of which have been the main focus of a lot consideration since Dobbs.
Conclusion
The result of those poll measures is one other reminder of the challenges multistate employers face to adjust to the ever-changing patchwork of office legal guidelines throughout the nation.
It’s essential for employers working in a number of jurisdictions, together with these with distant workers, to watch poll initiatives like these throughout every election cycle along with legislative motion, govt orders, guidelines from regulatory businesses, and different steerage that will require modifications to insurance policies and practices within the office.
Holding a continuing eye on authorized traits, judicial developments, and statutory modifications on the nationwide and native degree will assist cut back the chance of noncompliance.
Jackson Lewis P.C. © 2022Nationwide Regulation Overview, Quantity XII, Quantity 321
[ad_2]
Source link