American workers know the importance of keeping up with the latest federal minimum wage and fair employment laws. But, unfortunately, they’re usually not up to speed on state labor laws.
“Workers need to pay attention in order to understand their unique rights under various state laws, which include such things as minimum wage, rights relating to final pay, access to personnel records and state plant-closing laws,” said Barry A. Hartstein, partner in the Chicago office of the national law firm Vedder Price.
Hartstein, head of the firm’s labor and employment practice representing management, has been in employment law for 26 years. And he says state laws are a “rapidly emerging” area of employment mandates.
“Today, states are becoming more active in trying to be protective of employee rights,” Hartstein said.
“Workers need to know what those laws are in order to ensure that they have all the rights they’re entitled to by law. Employers need to know them, too, because the legislation can be a trap for unwary employers with multi-state operations: You can’t safely assume you’re in compliance simply by following federal statues.”
And there’s a lot to keep up with: The 50 states passed hundreds of laws last year affecting the way you work.
“State labor legislation enacted in 2001 covered a wide variety of employment standards and included several significant developments,” reports Richard R. Nelson, state standards adviser in the wage and hour division of the U.S. Department of Labor in Washington.
Nelson, assigned to the federal Employment Standards Administration, writes in the Monthly Labor Review that “minimum wage rates were increased in a number of states, child labor measures were enacted . . . and employment discrimination on the basis of genetic information was banned in several states.”
Additionally, according to Nelson, “laws also were enacted in the emerging areas of regulating employee monitoring in the workplace, allowing breaks for nursing mothers, providing benefits for domestic partners and addressing workplace harassment and violence.”
Here are some of the new state laws:
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Wages: Minimum-wage rates were increased in Georgia, Hawaii, Maine, Texas and Wyoming. Minimum-wage rates now are higher than the federal $5.15 an hour in Alaska, California, Connecticut, Delaware, District of Columbia, Hawaii, Maine, Massachusetts, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont and Washington.
Family issues: California, Illinois and Washington passed measures allowing break time for nursing mothers. Domestic partners were given rights to benefits in California and Maine.
Child labor: Indiana now requires rest breaks for workers under 18. Michigan permits longer and later hours of employment for workers 16 or older.
Workplace violence: Rhode Island and Nevada now allow employers to seek court orders to prevent unlawful acts in the workplace.
Others: Time off from work to vote was authorized by New Mexico for Native American state employees; by Virginia for state employees to donate bone marrow or organs; and by New York for disaster volunteers. And in Oregon, employers must provide workplaces free of tobacco smoke.
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Carol Kleiman’s column also appears in Tuesday’s Business and Wednesday’s Working sections. Watch her Career Coach segments on CLTV. Send e-mail to [email protected].