When considering employment law compliance, employers must look not only to federal and state laws but, increasingly, they need to look to city and county laws, according to attorney Kara Shea, who led a session at the October Advanced Employment Issues Symposium (AEIS) in Nashville, Tennessee.
Shea, a member at Miller & Martin PLLC in Nashville, says that lately cities and counties have initiated laws affecting private employers doing business in their jurisdictions. Seattle, Washington, D.C., and San Francisco, for example, all have versions of mandatory sick leave.
Another area getting a lot of attention from local governments is the “ban the box” rule. Not many states have addressed the issue, but “a bunch of cities have rules now where you’re not allowed to ask job applicants if they’ve ever been convicted of a felony,” Shea says. Most such laws are for city and county employees or contractors, but some also apply to private employers.
Watch Shea’s interview at AEIS
Kara Shea is a member at Miller & Martin PLLC in Nashville, Tennessee. She spoke at the Advanced Employment Issues Symposium in Nashville and will speak again at the AEIS conference in Las Vegas Nov. 17-18. Shea is also editor of the Tennessee Employment Law Letter.