Kelly Petrocelli, Author at Laborsphere

New Quota Law Coming to Illinois Warehouse Distribution Centers in 2026

In recent years, Illinois has gone the way of states like California and New York by expanding workplace protections for employees. That trend was evident in 2024 with the passage of several laws that took effect on January 1, 2025. Those laws provide additional rights to employees with respect to pay transparency, whistleblowing, E-Verify, captive audience meetings and rights under the Illinois Human Rights Act, to name a few. The trend has continued in the new year with the Illinois legislature passing the Warehouse Worker Protection Act (HB 2547), which the governor is expected to sign. Effective January 1, 2026, the Act will impose new obligations on employers operating large warehouse distribution centers in Illinois where employees are held to a quota.

Summary: Non-administrative, nonexempt employees who work in a large warehouse distribution center where they are subject to a quota must be provided with written details about the quota and what may happen if the quota is not met. If adverse action is taken against an employee for failing to meet a quota, the employee has a right to receive a written explanation about how their work failed to satisfy the quota. Employees (including former employees) who believe they received an adverse action because they did not meet a quota also have a right to receive, among other things, their personal work speed data for the last 90 days and a copy of the aggregated work speed data for employees in similar roles who worked at the same location and for the same time period.

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State & Local Employment Law Developments: Q4 2024

This quarter, we continue to highlight the ever-changing state and local employment law landscape. New state laws that took effect during the fourth quarter of 2024 or as of January 1, 2025, continue to focus on increasing employee protections in Alabama, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, District of Columbia, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Hampshire, New York, Oregon, Pennsylvania and Rhode Island.

To view the full alert, visit the Faegre Drinker website.

Illinois Federal Court Temporarily Enjoins Key Amendment to the Illinois Day and Temporary Labor Services Act

In August 2023, Illinois Governor Pritzker signed sweeping amendments to the Illinois Day and Temporary Labor Services Act (DTLSA) that imposed new obligations on both the day and temporary labor service agencies employing covered laborers and the clients to whom those agencies contract for temporary labor. Recently, one of those amendments (indeed the key amendment) was temporarily enjoined by an Illinois federal court, calling into question the future impact such amendments will have on the temporary labor market.

As way of background, the 2023 amendments to the DTLSA included, most significantly, a requirement that laborers assigned to a client for more than 90 calendar days (in any 12-month period, whether consecutively or intermittently) must be paid, by the temporary agency, at least the rate of pay and equivalent benefits as the lowest-paid directly hired employee of the client with the same level of seniority at the client and performing the same or substantially similar work. Agencies may alternatively pay “the hourly cash equivalent of the actual cost benefits” in lieu of providing equivalent benefits. The Illinois Department of Labor (IDOL) defined benefits as including health care, vision, dental, life insurance, retirement, leave, other similar employee benefits, and other employee benefits as required by State and federal law. The pay and equivalent benefits obligation was one of several obligations placed on covered agencies and the clients with whom they contract. These amendments were due to take effect immediately and the IDOL passed emergency rules to provide guidance to employers on compliance. However, in September 2023 the Joint Committee on Administrative Rules (JCAR) objected to those rules. And then in November 2023, Governor Pritzker signed a new amendment to the DTLSA to delay the effective date of these new obligations until April 1, 2024.

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U.S. Supreme Court to Clarify Whistleblower Statutes Regarding Employee’s Burden of Proof

The U.S. Supreme Court will decide in Murray v. UBS Securities, LLC whether a whistleblower must prove that an employer acted with “retaliatory intent” to be protected under the Sarbanes-Oxley Act. The Court’s decision will settle a split between the circuit courts, which will impact how employers defend against Sarbanes-Oxley Act retaliation claims.

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Is a Lateral Job Transfer With No Change in Pay or Benefits an Adverse Employment Action Under Title VII? The Supreme Court has Decided to Weigh In

The U.S. Supreme Court has granted certiorari in Muldrow v. City of St. Louis, Mo., No. 22-193, to address a split in the circuit courts over whether a forced lateral transfer, with no change in pay or benefits, is an adverse employment action under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Such a finding would further expand the type of conduct that can give rise to a cause of action under Title VII.

To view the full alert, visit the Faegre Drinker website.

Non-Competes Will Continue to Be Under Attack in 2023

The U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) recently issued a notice of proposed rulemaking that would dramatically change the playing field for employers who have post-employment non-compete agreements with employees or have a practice of requiring such agreements as a condition of employment. The FTC’s proposed rule is open for public comment until March 20, 2023. Whether the FTC’s proposed rule (once finalized) will survive legal challenges is a hotly debated topic among members of the legal community, many of whom believe that Congress did not clearly empower the FTC with the authority to enact such a broad rule, and therefore the rule will not survive given the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2022 decision in West Virginia v. EPA.

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