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Published Article

Remote Work and Reasonable Accommodations in the Post-COVID-19 Workplace

Read Time: 1 min

Labor and Employment attorney Chase Stoecker (Fort Lauderdale) published an article in Law.com’s Mid-Market Report on March 15th regarding the evolving interpretation of the ADA’s “reasonable accommodations” standard regarding remote work following the Coronavirus pandemic.

Under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), an employer with more than 15 employees must provide reasonable accommodation to an employee with a disability, so long as the employee’s accommodation allows him or her to perform “essential job functions” and does not cause an “undue hardship” to the employer.” “Undue hardship” in this sense means “significant difficulty or expense.”

In the pre-COVID-19 world, employers often rejected the idea of telework as a “reasonable accommodation” and cited that it would not allow for employees to conduct their “essential job functions,” thus causing an “undue hardship” on the company. …

But what about the traditional office job? In a post-COVID-19 world, this defense becomes harder to establish, as many employees working in traditional offices were allowed to perform the majority of their tasks from home.

Click here to read the full article.

Insights

Alert

EEOC Guidance: Employers May Incentivize Covid Vaccination

June 3, 2021

On May 28, 2021, the EEOC issued new guidance on COVID-19 vaccinations in the workplace entitled “What You Should Know About COVID-19 and the ADA, the Rehabilitation Act and other EEO laws.” Among the salient topics considered, the EEOC confirmed that documentation regarding an employee’s test status and related health information is confidential medical information.

Published Article

Vaccines, testing, screening: What can employers require of employees to get back to work?

February 24, 2021

Over 27 million Americans have now received at least a first dose of what are proving to be effective COVID-19 vaccines. While this is extraordinarily welcome news, it raises complex questions about who will return to work, when, and how, including the tricky issue of whether employers can require employees to be vaccinated.

COVID-19 Updates

Podcast: Vaccines in the time of COVID

January 12, 2021

In the time of Coronavirus with many municipalities implementing restrictions on business and individual activity, employers are anxious to return to normal operations with staff onsite as soon as possible. With vaccines becoming available, employers may be wondering, can I require my employees to get the COVID vaccine?

Alert

DOL Issues Final Rule on Independent Contractor Status

January 11, 2021

On January 7, 2021, the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) issued a final rule that clarifies how employers should determine who is an independent contractor and who is an employee for purposes of the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA).

Alert

Department of Labor Finalizes Rule Allowing Mandatory Tip Pools

December 30, 2020

On December 22, 2020, the Department of Labor announced its final rule modifying federal regulations regarding compensation for tipped employees. This new rule follows 2018 federal legislation which amended the Fair Labor Standards Act to prohibit employers from keeping their employees’ tips.