A Notable Week Indeed – From OSHA to Trade Secrets to ADA Accommodations and Transgender Rights!

It’s been a busy and, let’s say notable, week in the area of employment law. Here’s a quick recap, with more to come in future posts, of what you may have missed if you were focused elsewhere this week.

First, OSHA published a new injury Rule this week. While it does not take effect until January 1, 2017, employers should not wait until then to begin thinking about what changes may be necessary to ensure full compliance in the new year. The rule changes create a new cause of action for employees if they suffer retaliation for reporting a workplace injury, and employers are expected to ensure that policies addressing safety do not discourage employees from reporting such injuries. Large employers will also have some additional reporting requirements to OSHA. And, significantly, and in line with the current administration’s agenda of transparency, OSHA will begin making injury data accessible to the public, after removing any personally identifiable information regarding employees. That’s just a summary, with more to come in a future blog post. Stay tuned.

Second, did you hear that President Obama signed into law the Defend Trade Secret Act of 2016? Yes, that’s right, claims for trade secret misappropriation are not just limited to what the applicable state law provides. The new law creates a federal cause of action for the theft/misappropriation of trade secrets that are “related to a product or service used in, or intended for use in, interstate or foreign commerce.” The law also creates a new mechanism for a court to order the civil seizure of property, ex parte, if an employer can meet certain stringent standards for such an order.

Third, not to be overshadowed by either the President or OSHA, the EEOC published its own resource document this week regarding employer duties to provide leave as a reasonable accommodations in the workplace. While the new resource tracks what the EEOC has been saying for many years (or what we, as employment attorneys, know from tracking EEOC litigation and publications), the new resource delves a little deeper into how employers should be analyzing an employee’s request for leave and may be a helpful resource for employers who may still be under the mistaken impression that simply applying a leave policy (or workplace rule) the same to everyone is acceptable under the ADA (hint: we know that employers must modify policies for individuals with a disability if doing so could be a form of reasonable accommodation). Our mantra of no more “automatic termination” policies can no longer be ignored. This is serious stuff. Lots more to come on this topic.

Fourth, the EEOC was also busy issuing a new fact sheet on bathroom access for transgender employees. The fact sheet is brief, essentially reciting the few decisions issued on the topic, and reiterating for employers that transgender employees must be permitted to use the bathroom that corresponds with their gender identity (not biological sex) and cannot be conditioned on an employee having undergone reassignment surgery. Also, employers beware, providing a separate, single-user bathroom for a transgender employee is a form of discrimination (although you can provide a single-user bathroom for use by all employees). A transgender employee must have equal access to the common bathroom that corresponds with their gender identity, regardless of whether it makes other employees uncomfortable.

These are just a few of the many things that happened this week. Stay tuned for further analysis on these topics and more (including the much-anticipated DOL overtime regulations that could be published as early as next week).

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