Does your business engage independent contractors to provide products or services in Illinois, or is your business located in Illinois? If so, the Freelance Worker Protection Act imposes new obligations on contracting entities and gives freelance workers various remedies and rights for violations.

Illinois enacted the Freelance Worker Protection Act effective July 1, 2024. The Act applies to freelance workers providing products or services in Illinois or to a contracting entity located in Illinois. Contracting entities must have a written agreement with freelance workers for contracts taking effect after July 1, 2024.

Governor Holcomb’s Executive Order 20-43, signed on September 24, 2020 requires all businesses situated or operating in Indiana to create a COVID-19 response plan outlining measures and safeguards for the safety of employees, customers, clients and members of the public. The plan must be provided to all employees and posted publicly. Existing policies should be reviewed and updated to reflect current practices and standards.

The minimum requirements of the COVID-19 response plan include:

On Monday of this week, a divided U.S. Supreme Court decided a landmark employment law case.  In Bostock v. Clayton County, Georgia, the U.S. Supreme Court found that Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibits sex discrimination in employment, includes sexual orientation and gender identity.  Title VII applies to employers with 15 or more employees in 20 or more calendar weeks in the current or preceding calendar year.  Title VII prohibits discriminating against an individual with respect to employment decisions, compensation, terms, conditions, or privileges of employment because of an individual’s race, color, religion, sex, or national origin.   

New overtime rules go in effect on January 1, 2020 that may affect whether your employees qualify for an exemption from overtime pay. You may recall that a previous rule in 2016 to increase salary levels was blocked by a federal judge before the rule went into effect. Thankfully, for employers, this new rule is a smaller increase in salary levels than the 2016 rule.

In summary, the salary threshold for two exemptions from overtime pay -- the white collar exemption and the highly compensated employee exemption -- are increasing on January 1, and certain nondiscretionary bonuses and incentive payments can be used to satisfy a portion of the salary threshold. This means that employers will need to increase salaries, nondiscretionary bonuses, or nondiscretionary incentive payments to retain the exemptions or pay overtime to employees who do not meet the new test.

The full details on the final rule can be found in the Department of Labor press release, but here's a brief summary of the changes:

Keeping track of employee documentation can be tedious, but it’s necessary and
especially helpful in the event of an employee-related issue. The big question is: what
kinds of documentation do you need to file away? In comes our personnel file checklist.
Below we’ve outlined our recommendations for what documents you should keep in
personnel files and those you should keep separately. If you have any questions, please
give us a call at 765.423.7900.