Paid Leave for Federal Contractors

Introduction

Joe Young:

Good afternoon and happy spring, everyone. I hope it's spring-like weather wherever you're joining us from. Welcome, and for many of you, welcome back to the GovCon HR Round-Up podcast. This is episode four. Seems hard to believe we just got started. For those of you who haven't joined us before, my name is Joe Young, and I am the president of GovConPay.

Studio Introduction

Joe Young:

As always, we are joining you live from the wonderful studios of BRC Digital Strategies, the media affiliate of Berenzweig Leonard LLP. I am flanked by my partners, Mr. Declan Leonard and Mr. Seth Berenzweig. For those who may be joining us for the first time, why don't you guys introduce yourself and the firm?

Declan Leonard:

I'll start off, Joe. Great to be here again. I am Declan Leonard, I am managing partner here at Berenzweig Leonard, and I also head up our firm's employment law practice.

Seth Berenzweig:

And I'm Seth Berenzweig. I'm co-managing partner of the law firm, and I head up our corporate practice.

Joe Young:

Great. Well, as always, we have an important topic to cover today. But also my experts here were informing me when I got here that there's some real breaking news kind of in the legal world here in the past week or so. So we're going to save some time, and we have some interesting topics we're looking forward to covering a little bit at the end.

Joe Young:

So I think that's, in the industry, what we call a tease. So there's...

Declan Leonard:

Never never a dull moment in the...

Joe Young:

Field, never a dull moment. So, some interesting things to cover. So we will. So, please stick around to the end for that. But for today, this topic maybe isn't quite as sexy as our topic last month, but I...

Seth Berenzweig:

Think Declan would disagree with that.

Joe Young:

Okay. Alright.

Seth Berenzweig:

Thanks all.

Declan Leonard:

Alright. By the way, speaking of sexy, we each have colored, but we do have color. But this was not coordinated in any way, shape, or form. So, I mean, that's got to count for some fashion game. Got to count for something.

Main Discussion: Paid Leave Requirements

Joe Young:

So, today's topic is paid leave requirements for GovCons. So again, maybe not as attractive, but something I know you guys get a lot of conversation on. The devil's in the details. There's tons of nuances. So, something we definitely wanted to kind of add to our agenda for the podcast. So, why don't we just kind of jump right in and, Declan, you know, there are some very specific things around this topic that we need to be aware of.

Declan Leonard:

Yeah. I mean, so, the great thing about these, these round-ups is, we try to focus obviously on government contractors. And so, you know, leave is a topic that is near and dear to the HR Folks out there because it is a huge benefit that they're providing to employees when they're doing recruiting. But it also causes a lot of confusion.

So let's just hit this for government contractors. There is actually a very specific law that comes into play when it comes to sick leave for government contractors. It's called Executive Order 13706, EO 13706 because we're in D.C. and we could never say a word, we have to use acronyms passed under Obama. So it's been out for a while. And what it does is it applies. So it's very important to find out to ascertain who it applies to, because it does create a lot of confusion. It applies to employees who work directly on service contract at SCA work, which I know there's quite a bit as you've informed me about.

Joe Young:

Yeah, we're seeing more and more of it in our client base across the country.

Declan Leonard:

And maybe a little bit less so, but perhaps in the audience today, Davis-Bacon, which is largely construction contracts and basically what it says is if you work either directly as an employee on one of those or you work in connection with and we'll talk a little bit about in connection with. But if you work like, let's just say indirectly on one of these contracts, you're entitled to under under this executive order 56 hours of leave per year of sick leave.

Okay. So I do want to point out it does not apply to, I hate to use this phrase, but regular government contracts, you know, your typical I.T. related contracts that we see also a lot that are not SCA and certainly not Davis-Bacon. There are two other areas that it applies to recessions and federal leasing. We're not going to get into that today.

That's a bit too much in the weeds. And so the mechanics of them, speaking of getting into the weeds, the mechanics actually do get quite a bit into the weeds. We don't have the time today to really hit all of that. But, you know, I will point out that based on the questions that we get regularly from our government contracting clients who are implicated by this executive order, it is a source of a lot of confusion.

Seth Berenzweig:

So if I may just follow up on that, there are different dimensions of the source of confusion as well. And what I'd like to do is just take a moment to dig a little bit more deeply into what some of those characteristics are. So first of all, under the executive order and how it's being enforced by the executive branch there, there are some modifications that if you're not aware of at a granular level, might be a little bit surprising.

First of all, what is a condition that that qualifies for Leave? It doesn't just apply to physical health and it also doesn't just apply to mental health. It also applies to a provision for preventive care that is an additional expanded aspect of of the order. Also, it goes further than the Family Medical Leave Act and that it allows leave not just to care for a family member, but also to care for people who with whom you have a close relationship.

So, for example, a good friend or neighbor. And that's something that is very much a new characteristic that falls clearly outside of the FMLA. So there are aspects and contours to this that you need to be aware of. One of the other areas of confusion is the calculation. Is it just as easy as saying, okay, it's 56 and you're done?

Well, not exactly, because you also have carryover questions. So if you end up with, say, at the end of the year, there's 12 carryover hours that can be forwarded over into the next set of hours in the next term, but not to exceed a total of 56 hours. So from a substantive and also from a calculation level, there are certain aspects in terms of how you actually end up applying it.

Declan Leonard:

Yeah, because if you look let's just say you get 56 hours of sick leave under this executive order. Well, as you just pointed out, let's just say an employee in year one gets 56 hours as they're required to, but they only use 40 of them. So 16 carryover that next year, they don't get 56 hours.

They get 40 hours because 40 plus 16, if my math is good, get you to 56 hours. So and I certainly didn't raise that 2 to 2 to get into a math computation, you know, competition.

Seth Berenzweig:

Law school there'd be no math.

Declan Leonard:

Yeah, that's right. It's really Joe, this is a lot in your purview, which is record-keeping and tracking all of this stuff because it is not a one size fits all now.

Joe Young:

Definitely. And, you know, we see in our space, obviously on the payroll, on the HR side, which is our focus, but then we work so much hand in hand with the DCA compliant ERP and time systems out there that our clients use be at the Costpoints and the Unanets and the Procas' of the world. And tying that together between hey this is the system for record there but how it is to come in and still be rectified from a payroll and an HR perspective.

Declan Leonard:

Yeah, I feel for government contractors in particular. The HR folks setting up their systems seems to be so critical in order to comply with all this. The one other point that I would say is, you know, you do have this carryover requirement, but you do not have to pay this out. Any unused accrued sick leave under this executive order when an employee leaves. And that's kind of an important point because that sometimes becomes a huge liability for companies. And before we move on to the next thing, I do just want to underscore what Seth went through because for HR folks, the notion that there are different definitions of what it means to be sick because, you know, we all know under the FMLA you're going to have one definition, serious medical condition. 

But under this, you can't just adopt that and bring it in and say, oh, in our handbook, we just have a one size fits all definition of sick, because as Seth mentioned, it's preventative care. And the FMLA talks about it being a direct family member. And here it's like you can go down the street and Joe, your neighbor might be going through something and you can use this leave for that too.

So it's an important point to underscore.

Joe Young:

Different definitions of sick for different employees inside the same company, depending on contract and what's the impact that on policy.

Seth Berenzweig:

It really begs the question of whether your handbook is up to date on this stuff, because these are constantly changing, and any of these nuances that are uncovered means that that you're out of track. So that's something to also just take a look at as well.

Joe Young:

And it comes from an enforcement perspective who's the enforcement arm for this and what are some of the ramifications of everything getting outside the the guidelines here.

Declan Leonard:

Every employment lawyers, friend and every HR folks, friend. The Department of Labor DOL four letter word. No, I'm just kidding. Hopefully there's nobody listening, but no, they're the ones that are in charge of enforcing this. And so they'll take complaints, direct complaints from employees. And, you know, the consequences can be very severe.

I mean, you know, it's not going to happen every time. But they can actually debar a contractor who was found to engage in, you know, what they would consider enough flagrant, you know, violations of this. So I think companies do have to take this very seriously.

Joe Young:

So we're kicking off a lot of this conversation around the new executive order from a few years ago under the Obama administration. So let's say a company is fully compliant with respect to those new regulations under the executive order. Does that give them peace of mind or is there more?

Seth Berenzweig:

Well, there's no way. But wait, there's more, you know, so we've talked about the federal level of the analysis, but then you also have to bring in the next level, which is the state level of analysis. And so reviewing this and getting ready for our broadcast today, I was thinking that this this reminds me of a field full of landmines of issues.

But even perhaps even more troubling is that the landmines aren't even the same because you have federal rules and then you have 50 different state laws that apply as well. The states can come forward with their own patchwork of sick leave laws that also must be filed that must almost be followed. And the way to harmonize all this is to say that the states can always give more rights.

So, for example, if the feds require you to get 56 full hours per year to a qualifying employee, if the state that you're that your certain employees are operating in is 60 or 66, then you have to follow the higher level because you always have to follow local state law to the extent that it's not inconsistent with that. 

Some specific examples of other jurisdictions that do provide a good deal more Colorado and Oregon provide up to 12 weeks for family and medical leave. So it's important for you to be able to not only be aware of what's happening at the federal level, but of course at the state level, which also means that if you have six locations where you're at the customer, then you have to focus on all those geographics and just understand what the rules are so that you can understand how to play the game there.

Declan Leonard:

Yeah, and Colorado is certainly by no means the only one. I mean, certainly every employee's friend, California, of course, is on the cutting edge of creating sick leave. New York is also doing so. Oregon, I mean, the list goes on and on. And so even as we sit here today, I mean, a month from now, two months from now, there may be new states that join the list.

And so from an HR standpoint, again, it's monitoring it, making sure you know what laws are subject to. But again, to get back to you, Joe, I mean, I don't know if I want to call it a nightmare, but it is a logistics or a real, you know, kind of puzzle to to make sure that these systems are set up the appropriate way, which is your bailiwick.

Joe Young:

Yeah. Yeah. And to that point, our VP of HR Services and I spoke before on this topic. You know, he said in speaking to some of our clients, they get to the point to you're in multiple states, do we pick the one with the highest benefit to alleviate having to have ten different policies? We have employees in California, do we just do we just pick California as our policy and implement that across, which certainly gives some ease of administration. But, I'm sure you've had conversations with clients to of boy, what cost does that bring on, especially in an SCA environment or Davis-Bacon where you're, you know, on tighter margins.

Declan Leonard:

Yeah, I was just talking I was I was just talking to an HR rep yesterday about this issue. And they actually do do that. They actually go to the you know, they use California. But you have to understand that California has so many laws that impose a lot of costs. Their bereavement leave is at five days now of paid leave.

And, you know, that is higher than most states set it at. And so, you know, you're already talking, as you just noted, you're talking about Service Contract Act contracts, where your margins are going to be thin. I think it's going to be tough for a government contractor just to just to take that passively.

Joe Young:

Easy.

Declan Leonard:

Way out.

Seth Berenzweig:

Yep. If you can take a state by state view, let's say that in your contract you're operating in six states, it will probably in the long run be more cost effective to delineate what the rules are and follow those rules of the six states, but not leave that money on the table in terms of your margin, rather than just saying we're just going to stuff everything through the lens of California, but we'll, you know, just get we'll just leave those thinner margins on the table.

If you want to have these states operate as profit centers, it definitely pays to take a closer look. Yeah.

Joe Young:

Well, and in the HR world, and not just in government, we've seen a lot now, I guess from a benefits the challenges of recruiting employees now and getting good talent and getting more creative in benefits of unlimited PTO. Yeah, buckets of PTO, flex time, it's all in one category. How can those policies that may be implemented in the commercial space or maybe for the non SCA employees, what's the impact of those types of policies on this executive order as as it applies to this audience?

Declan Leonard:

Yeah, we get that question a lot. And it is a great question because as you said, so many companies have gone to, you know, flex time, whether you want to call it unlimited. We usually tell companies to shy away from unlimited because it's really a misnomer. It's not like somebody getting unlimited FMLA leave, paid leave for 12 weeks or whatever.

There are going to be guardrails on it. So flex time off is probably the better name for it. Those policies are fine actually, with regard to some of the stuff, as long as they don't restrict the use, as long as they in other words, as long as they they follow the definitions of what we talked about before, what constitutes being sick under this executive order?

You know, if you had unlimited or I should say, flex time policy that said, you can't take time off to care for a neighbor. Well, guess what? You know that it doesn't comply with this executive order. I've never seen a policy that says that. But, you know, let's just say it did say that. The other thing is, unlike regular sick leave, where or paid time off, where you really do have the ability companies do have the ability to to granted or not granted, they may say, you know what, we're in the middle of proposal season, you can't take this time off right now. This executive order actually basically says don't interfere with their ability to take it as long as they give you a notice. And I'm not going to get too deep into it. But let's just say they give you seven days notice. You're not going to be able to tell them that, hey, it's a busy time right now. Can you do this another time? Can you get sick another time? And so they are they are not. So as long as these flex time policies don't infringe, don't create any additional guardrails, then then they will comply with these. So you don't have to specifically say 56 hours.

Seth Berenzweig:

And I would also say that not only will the the federal government be mindful to hold some folks feet to the fire on that, but the the Department of Labor doesn't necessarily understand all the ins and outs of of the SCA requirements. And all of these leave aspects anyway, for the for the folks that are joining us on the show today.

And we don't really have a lot of time to get into this. As they know, the agency doesn't necessarily know what the answers are either, and they end up coming in with calculations that are wrong - job categories or labor rates that are wrong. So that's another layer of complexity that may that may be brought on top of it.

Aside from the fact that you have the straightforward compliance issues that are always on the table.

Declan Leonard:

So the last thing I do want to point out before we jump into, you know, the next topic is when you're giving these 56 hours, you do not have to necessarily tell the employee that it's only to be used for sick leave. So if an employee takes that 56 hour allotment, goes to Hawaii on a great family trip and then somehow gets sick, as long as they've been given the opportunity to use those 56 hours, they used it for something else, like a trip. They're out of luck. They don't get 56 more hours.

Seth Berenzweig:

So it's 56 hours of leave, not just 56 hours of sick.

Declan Leonard:

Yes. To be used for sick leave or however you want. Yep.

Joe Young:

Right. Have you guys seen any clients which have these different populations and see where actually there's different handbooks for the population because of the differences there versus having these competing policies inside the same handbook? Well, this employee doesn't always apply it to that person.

Declan Leonard:

We use we specifically use addenda, because if you've got a couple of different, you know, if you have two standalone policies, it gets very convoluted. But if you have one that has addenda and again, once again, it's a recordkeeping and tracking thing to make sure that if you've got California employees, that you make sure that they get the California to Colorado, the same way.

Declan Leonard:

So, yeah, I think that that seems to work the best. Okay.

Joe Young:

So a lot to take in there. Again, devil, you know, the minutia is in the details kind of almost seems not ending. You know, what would be the recommendation, Seth, now to some of our professionals out there of like the things you should be thinking about doing right now to make sure you're in compliance with.

Seth Berenzweig:

Sure. So first of all, I would take a look your sick leave policy, it's probably encompassed somewhere within your employee handbook or at least adjacent to it. And I would take a look at the language there and just see if it fits with some of the terms and the provisions that we talked about today. As a matter of fact, and as a matter of law, I would make sure that you not only catalog the states in which you're operating, but as new contracts and new task orders come in to make sure that you track that as well, so that when you know, when the boots hit the ground, so to speak, you're ready to address those issues proactively rather than reactively. Another dimension that we don't really have a lot of time to talk about today would be the extent that the company has a collective bargaining agreement in place, and that adds a whole other aspect to it. But take a look at what you have on the shelf, take a look at the jurisdictions that may also be coming up.

It's not very hard to be able to put those in place proactively, and it's much easier to do that in a proactive mode rather than being reactive.

Joe Young:

Yeah, And you know, we're just talking about kind of a sick leave and leave requirements of SCA now.

Declan Leonard:

Yeah.

Joe Young:

I think I know in our world there's a growing number of clients doing that. I find like a lot of companies and professions out there don't realize there are companies out there that specialize in just doing this. So, there are third-party administrators out there specializing in service contract administration to help you with your wage determinations. Know what apply not only from this and tracking it, but then getting into your benefits and your benefit plans and moving.

You know, you're doing the H and W through 401k, so I always recommend to our clients they come in, especially if they've got multiple agreements or they get into union agreements and collective bargaining agreements.

Seth Berenzweig:

Exactly.

Joe Young:

I am very quick to say let's bring the professionals in because the devil is, there is so much minutia there. So, you know, to anybody out there who is struggling with this, always feel free to reach out because definitely, we have some people that we've not only strategically partnered with, but we've also built integrations with them because it does take so many.

To your point from the administration, you've got a time system or the payroll and the h.r. You need to get the time to these folks so they can do these calculations. So we've worked to try and facilitate for our companies getting information through all these systems as seamlessly as possible, as accurately as possible, and take some of that burden off the HR and the finance department.

Declan Leonard

Think knowing the law is almost the easy part. Implementing it from my perspective seems like the tougher part.

Joe Young:

Yeah, absolutely.

Seth Berenzweig:

How about some breaking news?

Joe Young:

How about we do some breaking news in our final 10 minutes? Because there is a number of big things that have just happened here. Some that we have on our agenda coming up here soon. But why don't you start sharing with us here to.

Declan Leonard:

Start with the biggest one? So the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), the federal agency that's been really, really honing in and focusing in on non-compete agreements next Tuesday. So it's not the only, you know, the NFL draft is not the only big thing that's on the horizon for us employment law geeks next Tuesday, April 23rd. I hope I have that right Tuesday, but April 23rd, the FTC has called a special meeting where they are going to announce what their view is on what their position is and whether or not they're going to implement a ban on a federal ban on non-compete agreements.

And so they're going to reveal that next Tuesday. It's going to be big news next Tuesday afternoon. And so that could really reverberate not just for government contractors, but companies all across the United States.

Seth Berenzweig:

What do you think they're going to do?

Declan Leonard:

You know, I think that they I mean, I did another seminar recently where we had somebody from the FTC on, and I think they really are gunning for something now. They received tons, I think 26,000 comments. So this is a huge, huge hot topic. So I don't think it's going to be an outright ban. I think it's going to be a ban of a lot of them with then some maybe some exceptions in certain, you know, maybe they'll have some parameters involved.

So but I think they're going to move boldly, actually. Yeah.

Seth Berenzweig:

Yeah. I think you're right. I think the I think this administration has shown a tendency to not be bashful when it comes to protecting middle and lower wage workers. I think you're right. I think they'll be some categories. But but I think they're definitely to up some action and be interesting to see what happens on Tuesday.

Declan Leonard:

They'll probably they'll probably look at what the states have been doing. The states have been so active in this area. You know, if you look at even D.C., Virginia and Maryland, they all have their own restriction for non-compete, whether it's salary thresholds that you can't have it below. I think they'll probably implement some of those what they'll call best practices, salary thresholds, things of that nature.

Seth Berenzweig:

Exactly. What about a big development yesterday in the Supreme Court?

Declan Leonard:

So, I mean, there was a lot of stuff going on. So, Supreme Court came out with a big decision and employment law. And I'll set the stage a bit. So in order to show discrimination, you know, legal discrimination, illegal discrimination that's viable in court, you've got to be able to show that you suffered an adverse employment action, something that happened to you, you know, so you were fired or demoted. 

Those are the easy ones. But what happens in a lot of these cases is the employee is subject to discrimination but is not necessarily subject to overt adverse employment action.

Seth Berenzweig:

And they say that it was maybe even it was a little bit harm. It was not significant harm.

Declan Leonard:

Yes. Yes, that's exactly right. And so in this particular case that made its way up from Missouri to the United States Supreme Court, it was one of those cases set that you just talked about, where it was a job transfer. But the but the it was a police officer, job transfer didn't lose their title, didn't lose their pay. So didn't suffer any like financial impacts. And the lower court before it made it to the United States Supreme Court said, yeah, that's not good enough. It's got to be more of a significant harm for it really to make its way through the courts. Yes. And the court basically said no, The US Supreme Court said no. Any harm that can be traced back to discrimination, unlawful discrimination is enough to make out a claim under, let's say, title seven or the other discrimination statute.

Seth Berenzweig:

And I think that this is going to play out, for example, in retaliation cases, as we know, in and out of the business world, retaliation sometimes can be done in small ways as well as big ways. In this case, since her car was removed as one of the fringe benefits of her employment from a logistical standpoint, from a reputational standpoint, you know, it's something that could have been minimized.

But the Supreme Court really kind of, you know, for lack of a better phrase, put on their liberal hat and said that there are aspects of harm that can happen in the workplace that doesn't have to meet a significant harm test. It's really any such harm. So that was a real loosening of that standard, which means that you HR professionals out there, this plus the next development that we'll talk about in a minute means that you're going to have more claims that are probably going to be coming.

Declan Leonard:

Going to keep you busy, no doubt.

Live Q&A: Questions from the Audience

Joe Young:

And let's let's hold off on our last breaking news. We do have some live questions. Main topics that I definitely want to address for those folks are with us today. So the first question that came in was we are in all 50 states. We took a one size fits all approach. It's still a nightmare to track and administer. 

As we were discussing. The question is regarding carryover we frontload. So we generally do not permit carryover. The Q&A says that front loading is fine, but you still have to permit carryover. That makes no sense to me since an employee will always have 56 hours. How are your other clients managing that?

Declan Leonard:

Yeah, that's an interesting. I mean, it seems to be more of a logistical, almost like form over substance because as the as the writer notes, they're still going to have 56 hours at the end of the day. So whether you take it from the carryover or whether you take it from the fact that they frontload the full 56, but the the executive order does say that you must carry over.

And so my my only concern would be just complying with that. So I'd frontload whatever's left over from the carryover. I do think it's form over substance because you know but do you want to invite an audit, I guess is the only issue. And so, you know, most of clients that I've seen do comply with that carryover.

Many of them do also end up doing an accrual method so that that makes more sense when they're doing the carryover.

Seth Berenzweig:

Let's do the next one. The next one's really interesting.

Joe Young:

Yeah. So the next question, if you are if you are a subprime and you were given a wage determination under SCA, it increases at the DOL level, is the prime obligated to extend it to the subprime? You know.

Seth Berenzweig:

That's a really interesting question. I would say probably yes, but it depends. Provided that your subcontract has language in it that provides that it should track and foot with the rates as may be adjusted from time to time. I think the answer would be yes, but a lot of that's going to depend on what the language of your subcontract is.

So out of an abundance of caution, what I would do is I would just make sure that you have language in your subconscious or at least to modify your subcontract to make sure that you have a continued tracking of that. Because if the prime has an argument to say that, look, this is in concrete, this is in stone, that could be problematic, but there shouldn't be any reason why the prime would have any problem following that as long as it's provided in the language of the subcontract.

Joe Young:

Yep. Great. Well, hey, thank you for those those questions. We love the interaction here. I'm going to go to the left and let's wrap up with our last bit of breaking news.

Breaking News: Pregnancy and Discrimination Act

Declan Leonard:

Yeah. And still a very important one dealing with pregnancy. So there already has long been on the on the books, on the on the law books, protection for pregnancy discrimination, the Pregnancy and Discrimination Act that basically says you can't discriminate against somebody because they're pregnant. So you can't say, hey, you know, somebody comes to you and says, hey, guess what, great news. I'm pregnant. You know, I'm only three months in, but I will be needing to take leave and stuff. And then all of a sudden they're given bad performance reviews and they're basically ushered out before they give birth in in an attempt, I guess, to try to prevent them from using leave and stuff like that. That's always been on the books.

But what happened more recently was the EEOC just issued its long awaited regulations under what they call the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act. And so that went into effect last year. But remember, Congress passes the laws. The executive branch then issues its regulations. Those are the ones that are always the meat in the substance of it. And so this is not redundant to the Pregnancy and Discrimination Act, because this basically says that pregnant employees can now get accommodations.

So we all probably know under the Americans with Disabilities Act, if you have a disability, you can get accommodations, you can get, you know, certain things to help you perform your job, pregnancy has always been generally deemed not to be a disability. There have been a couple of courts that have been outliers but generally has not fallen under that.

Seth Berenzweig:

It's temporary.

Declan Leonard:

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Because they consider it a temporary condition and. Exactly. So now what this new law does is it basically takes pregnancy as a disability and puts it on steroids because it actually allows way more accommodation than under the Americans with Disabilities Act.

Seth Berenzweig:

So not only does it definitively define it as a disability, but provides broad range for accommodations in the workplace, which is really a different script than what had occurred previously.

Declan Leonard:

Yeah. So things like additional restroom breaks, additional a closer parking space, like just think of all the things that would help. And this is really like the medical aspects and the physical aspects of being pregnant. So being having a closer parking space, not having to walk as long and, you know, to the to the office, to the extent anyone goes to the office, food and drink breaks.

 Here's where it's interesting, though, because generally under the Americans with Disabilities Act, you weren't required to retool the job for a disability. But here that's why I call it a little bit on steroids, because you can actually get a changed work schedule. You can get reduced hours, telecommuting, light duty, job restructuring. Those are all things that under the ADA really are probably off limits for a normal disability.

And so this is I think is going to be a very potent law and regulation to follow for h.r.

Seth Berenzweig:

Folks, it's a big change. And to be clear, this is not related to SCA. This is across the board.

Declan Leonard:

Oh, 100%. Yes. This is for all employers, government contractors and beyond. Yes. Frankly, for all that we just talked about, for the non-compete, these breaking news, the non-compete, the the adverse employment action now being much broader under Title 7 and discrimination laws and now this new accommodation for pregnant employees. That applies to I don't want to say all employee employers because it's 15 or more employers for some of these, but it's not limited to government contractors.

Wrapping It Up: Next Month's Topic

Seth Berenzweig:

Well, time flies when we're having fun.

Joe Young:

It does.

Joe Young:

A jam packed session today. Regarding the non-compete topic, if that's something that any of our audience has specific more interest in, that is going to be our topic in June. So tune back in June, when we're really going to dive into that a little more. But as we've said before, we've run through our time today. We want to thank everybody again for taking the time to join us. We hope you got a lot of value out of our session today. Looking forward to next month, May 16th. Our topic next month is going to be Affirmative Action and DEI. We are going to have a special co guest host. Yes. Your colleague Kyle Wade, who is our head of HR services (CHRO) and play sit in. I'm going to be on a plane and I would rather be here to promote, but I'm not going to trust the remote connectivity mode on. So I'm not going to do that. But but we do look forward to having you join us again in May on behalf of Declan and Seth and myself, thank you again for joining the round up and we look forward to see you next month. Thanks for joining.