News Bulletin: April 2003

Final countdown for HIPAA privacy compliance.

Medical information privacy rules under the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) take effect April 14, 2003, for all covered entities other than small health plans, which have an additional year to comply. Under the rules, health plans won’t be able to disclose certain individual health information to employers unless certain conditions have been met. For more information, visit the Department of Health and Human Services website.

OSHA publishes ergonomics guidelines for nursing homes.

In connection with the voluntary ergonomics strategy announced last year by the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration, the agency has issued the first in a series of industry-specific guidelines to prevent work-related musculoskeletal disorders. This first set of guidelines focuses on recommendations to reduce employee injuries in nursing homes. OSHA is also working on guidelines for the retail grocery store and poultry processing industries. For more information on the nursing home guidelines click here.

Bureau of Citizenship and Immigration Services takes over INS duties.

As of March 1, 2003, the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service has been dismantled. Its duties—including responsibilities regarding the I-9 Form—have been transferred to the new Bureau of Citizenship and Immigration Services (BCIS), which is part of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. Despite these changes, all forms and procedures regarding the I-9 employment eligibility verification program remain valid.

New sex bias decision.

A California appeals court has given the go-ahead for a supervisor to sue her employer for illegal retaliation. The supervisor claims she was harassed after refusing an executive’s order to fire an employee whom the executive found “insufficiently attractive.” We’ll have full details on this new case in next month’s issue of CEA.

Legislation update. 

In Sacramento, state lawmakers have recently introduced the following measures: AB 244, which would do away with daily overtime rules; AB 1327, which would exempt employers with 50 or fewer employees from the new Family Temporary Disability Insurance Program; AB 196, which would expand the Fair Employment and Housing Act to prohibit gender identity discrimination; and AB 1223, which would repeal the new Cal-WARN mass layoff notice program.

Supreme court rules on whether fear of cancer creates claim for damages. 

The nation’s high court has ruled that under the Federal Employers’ Liability Act—which makes railroads liable to employees who suffer work-related injuries caused by a railroad’s negligence—rail workers with the lung disease asbestosis can sue their employer for mental anguish damages based on a fear of developing cancer from work-related exposure to asbestos. This is true even if the employees don’t have cancer or any symptoms of it. The high court stressed, however, that workers must prove their fears are “genuine and serious.”

High court to review ADA decision.

The U.S. Supreme Court has agreed to review a Ninth Circuit ruling that, under the Americans with Disabilities Act, an employer has an obligation to consider for rehire a rehabilitated drug addict who lost his job with the employer after testing positive for drugs.

Mass layoff reporting program rescued.

In the February 2003 Bulletin, we reported that the U.S. Department of Labor, citing funding problems, had discontinued monthly and quarterly reports tracking mass layoffs by U.S. companies. But the reports are now back on track, as a result of Congress’s restoring funds for the reporting program.