Record Attendance at EANJ Annual Meeting: Employers Learn What’s Next
Jul 2009
Confirm what you know. Learn what you missed. Be ready for what’s next. That was the message at the 93rd Annual Meeting convened by the Employers Association of New Jersey (EANJ) on June 19th.
A record turnout, about 20% of EANJ’s membership, attended the meeting.
The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) and the Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs (OFCCP) will be focusing enforcement efforts on unequal pay and on workplace discrimination against working parents and other care givers, according to a special briefing given by an expert panel comprised of Rebecca Dent and Robin Ross from EANJ and Lawrence Lorber and Leslie Silverman, partners at the Washington D.C. office, Proskauer Rose LLP.
According to Lorber, the main enforcement focus by both the EEOC and OFCCP will be “compensation, compensation, compensation.” He pointed to the Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, which reversed a U.S. Supreme Court decision and makes it easy to file unequal pay suits. Additionally, by a 256-163 vote, the U.S. House of Representatives passed the Paycheck Fairness Act. The bill would amend the Equal Pay Act of 1963 and impose the burden of justifying pay disparities between men and women within the same facility.
Ms. Silverman said that the federal agencies will focus on workplace discrimination against working parents and other care givers throughout 2009. While at the EEOC, she worked on the Enforcement Guidance that was issued in 2007. The Guidance gives investigators the tools to investigate a new line of discrimination cases covering a wide range of circumstances, including sex-based stereotyping and subjective decision-making regarding working mothers and fathers, assumptions about pregnant employees, discrimination against women of color, stereotyping based on an employee’s relationship with a disabled person, and hostile work environments affecting care givers.
The group also discussed the ADA Amendments Act of 2008, which Lorber said transformed the Americans with Disabilities Act into “an accommodation law.”
Dent discussed the social legislation that was recently enacted such as the FMLA Amendments, the COBRA Subsidy, and Family Leave Insurance. Family leave insurance extends state-mandated temporary disability insurance (TDI) to provide insurance benefits for up to six weeks for workers caring for ill family members, newborns and newly adopted children. Like TDI, family leave insurance would apply to all employers, regardless of size. Part time employees are also eligible for insurance.
Ross, an expert in employment law with an additional emphasis in immigration and I-9 compliance, mentioned that the Federal Acquisitions Regulatory Councils have published an amendment in the Federal Register postponing the applicability of the E-Verify final rule until June 30, 2009. The extension provides an opportunity for the Obama Administration to review the entire rule prior to applicability to federal contractors and sub-contractors.
According to John Sarno, EANJ’s president, “the likelihood that the some form of Employee Free Choice Act may get passed in 2009 is about 50-50.” The EFCA represents the most important national labor law in 75 years and will make non-union employers vulnerable to union organizing as never before.
In the wake of important labor law reforms, EANJ is launching a labor law program in the Fall, which is the first such program in the country to help human resource managers lead their organizations both strategically and legally.
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