Employers often use provisions in employment agreements to limit employees’ activities after the employment relationship has ended. The purpose of these provisions is to protect employers’ business interests, but they can be harmful to employees. Non-compete agreements restrict employees’ job prospects by limiting their ability to work for a company…
The Consolidated Appropriations Act (CAA) of 2023 became law on December 29, 2022. The bill includes two new laws, originally introduced as separate bills, that address pregnancy discrimination in the workplace. While New Jersey employment law provides a rather wide range of protections for employees who are pregnant or have…
New Jersey employment laws safeguard a wide range of rights for employees, including the right to a minimum wage and overtime compensation, a workplace free from unlawful discrimination, and the ability to organize and negotiate collectively for better working conditions. The National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) is a federal law…
Many of the features that we take for granted in the modern workplace are the result of labor organizing that occurred decades ago. The forty-hour work week and eight-hour work day are examples of benefits that labor unions achieved not only for their own members but for workers across the…
Pay disparities among employees are a common form of employment discrimination. Wage gaps exist based on sex, race, and other categories that are protected by New Jersey employment laws. Addressing the problem can be difficult because the evidence is often hidden from view. Many employers have tried, for example, to…
The U.S. legal system has much to say about employees’ duty to safeguard their employers’ proprietary or confidential information. Employees entrust a substantial amount of personal identifying information (PII) to their employers, but New Jersey employment laws have not defined employers’ legal duty to keep this information secure nearly as…
Federal and state laws limit where someone may file a lawsuit. The court must have the legal authority to hear the case and issue rulings affecting the defendant, known as jurisdiction. The location of the court, known as the venue, must have some connection to the events of the case…
The legal status of cannabis has gone through a number of changes in recent years, at least at the state level. Cannabis remains illegal under federal law. Medical use of cannabis has been legal under New Jersey law, however, for over a decade. A state law allowing limited possession and…
Remote work has become common for many workers in New Jersey and around the country. The COVID-19 pandemic may have caused a transition that was already underway to speed up. The increasing amount of remote work, however, raises legal questions that might not have easy answers. When an employee who…
Children working in dangerous jobs are a common feature in many famous photographs from the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Child labor was common in mines, factories, and other hazardous workplaces until the 1930s when the U.S. Congress passed the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA). That law sets strict…