In honor of Women’s History Month, we asked New York shareholder Diana Nehro, the newest member of the firm’s board of directors and chair of Ogletree Deakins’ Cross-Border Practice Group, a few questions about her experiences as a prominent and respected woman in the legal profession.
In honor of Women’s History Month, we asked New York shareholder Diana Nehro, the newest member of the firm’s board of directors and chair of Ogletree Deakins’ Cross-Border Practice Group, a few questions about her experiences as a prominent and respected woman in the legal profession.
On March 8, 2023, the Data Protection and Digital Information (No. 2) Bill was introduced to the UK Parliament by the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology. If enacted, the Bill will make changes to the UK General Data Protection Regulation, the Data Protection Act 2018, and the Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations. The Bill would facilitate certain types of data processing by redefining the parameters of what constitutes “personal data,” removing certain requirements and prohibitions, applying exemptions, and creating greater legal certainty regarding the permissibility of certain forms of personal data processing.
On July 31, 2019, Mexico’s Ministry of Labor and Social Welfare (Secretaria del Trabajo y Previsión Social (STPS)) published in the Official Gazette of the Federation (Diario Oficial de la Federación, or DOF) the protocol for the legitimation of a currently existing collective bargaining agreement (CBA) in compliance with Transitory Article Eleven of the official decree published in the DOF on May 1, 2019. The objective of the legitimation process is to provide certainty to unionized employees, making sure they know the terms of the applicable CBA and their union.
A recent decision of the German Federal Labor Court considerably restricts the objective, gender-neutral criteria that can justify different pay for the same work or equal work. Negotiating skills are now ruled out as a justification for a higher salary. However, differences in qualifications or professional experience continue to be recognized as objective criteria that may justify a compensation differential.
On March 3, 2023, the U.S. District Court for the District of Puerto Rico issued a decision declaring Law 41-2022 null and void, effectively reinstating the prior state of many of Puerto Rico’s employment statutory entitlements. The decision will impact employees’ statutory benefits and rights, including vacation pay and sick leave, meal periods, holiday bonuses, and statutory severance pay.
On February 3, 2023, Mexico’s Ministry of Labor and Social Welfare (Secretaría del Trabajo y Previsión Social) (STPS) published in the Official Gazette of the Federation an amendment to the guidelines regarding the Registry of Specialized Services Providers or Specialized Works (“REPSE,” for its acronym in Spanish), related to the provision of outsourcing services.
As of January 1, 2023, certain “business consultants” and “information technology consultants” in Ontario have been exempt from the Employment Standards Act, 2000 (ESA). These exemptions are part of the numerous amendments made to the ESA following the enactment of Bill 88, Working for Workers Act, 2022.
In the wake of the pandemic and global adoption of teleworking, an increasing number of employees are looking to work remotely abroad. Unfortunately, the law is not as flexible as technology. It may be very easy for employees to work abroad in practice, but there are a number of potential legal pitfalls that can create risks for employers.
On September 13, 2022, the German Federal Labor Court (Bundesarbeitsgericht) ruled (1 ABR 22/21) that employers are required to record the working hours of their employees. According to the Federal Labor Court, a comprehensive obligation to record working hours cannot be derived from the Working Hours Act; however, such an obligation follows from the mandatory interpretation of occupational health and safety regulations in conformity with European law. The decision of the Federal Labor Court has caused uncertainty among employers.
On December 14, 2022, Mexico’s Senate of the Republic approved the final project to modify Articles 76 and 78 of the Federal Labor Law (FLL), under which employees will be entitled to more mandatory and paid vacation days.
On 22 September 2022, the UK Government published the Retained EU Law (Revocation and Reform) Bill 2022. Under the bill, all retained European Union law would be revoked on 31 December 2023 (the sunset date) or at a later date prior to 23 June 2026 (the ten-year anniversary of Brexit) unless specific steps are taken to retain it.
As of November 23, 2022, the German Federal State of Hesse no longer requires an obligatory isolation period for persons who have tested positive for COVID-19.
Employers in Finland have a deadline of December 31, 2022, to double-check their pre-2022 employment contracts for noncompetition clauses and to waive them before the end of the transition year, if necessary.
On December 1, 2022, Mexican President Andrés Manuel Lopez Obrador announced that, unanimously, the business and labor sectors, as well as the government, had agreed to increase the minimum wage by 20 percent for 2023, which will be applicable in the Free Zone of the Northern Border (Zona Libre de la Frontera Norte or ZLFN), as well as the wage applicable in the rest of the country.
On October 25, 2022, U.S. professional basketball player Brittney Griner lost her bid in a Russian appeals court to overturn a nine-year sentence for attempting to smuggle illegal drugs into Russia. According to reports, Griner, a Women’s National Basketball Association star and two-time Olympic gold medalist, was arrested at a Russian airport in February 2022 while attempting to enter the country to play professional basketball with vaporizer cartridges containing less than one gram of hashish oil, a product derived from marijuana. Griner reportedly has a prescription for medical marijuana in Arizona, but marijuana, including medical marijuana, remains illegal in Russia.
A collision between the Ontario government and unionized education workers escalated into one of the most significant moments in recent Canadian labour relations history.
Canada is considering implementing new laws regarding supply-chain due diligence and other obligations relating to forced labour and child labour. In late 2021, Canadian Senator Julie Miville-Dechêne introduced Bill S-211, An Act to enact the Fighting Against Forced Labour and Child Labour in Supply Chains Act and to amend the Customs Tariff. It has since passed the Senate, and moved to the House of Commons where it is likely to pass and receive Royal Assent, becoming law.
After several months of discussion and uncertainty, on November 3, 2022, Mexico’s Senate of the Republic approved a bill that would modify articles 76 and 78 of Mexico’s Federal Labor Law (FLL) to entitle employees to more paid vacation days.
This fall and winter season, employers in Germany have several developments in German employment law to put on their radars, including optional bonus pay due to the spike in energy costs; workplace safety and health measures related to heat, and separately, COVID-19; and annual leave entitlements.
On September 28, 2022, Governor Pedro Pierluisi of Puerto Rico signed Law Number 82-2022 into law, amending Puerto Rico’s sexual harassment statute to require private employers to issue and implement specific protocols to manage sexual harassment incidents in their workplaces.
On October 6, 2021, the Act to modernize the occupational health and safety regime took effect. As indicated in the act’s title, its purpose was to modernize Québec’s occupational health and safety regime with regard to the prevention and compensation of employment injuries.
On October 7, 2022, President Biden signed Executive Order (EO) 14086, “Enhancing Safeguards for United States Signals Intelligence Activities,” which provides a new framework for legal data transfers between the European Union (EU) and the United States.
Paid annual leave days in Germany have been the subject of several recent decisions by the European Court of Justice (ECJ), with the Luxembourg-based judges regularly opposing previous case law of the Federal Labor Court regarding paid annual leave. The ECJ’s concerns have centered on the forfeiture provisions in Germany’s Federal Paid Leave Act, among other things.
On October 3, 2022, the last phase of the implementation of Mexico’s Federal Labor Law of 2019 (the “Labor Reform”) amendment became effective, and, consequently, a new labor process before the courts is now a reality in Mexico.
Understanding the intricacies of local labor laws is critical for any business with operations in multiple countries or looking to establish operations in a new country. This is especially true for laws regulating or mandating vacation time as many countries, such as Brazil, have systems that differ from what employers may be accustomed to in the United States. Failure to rigorously comply with these laws could force employers to pay costly penalties and allow employees to use up large amounts of accrued vacation time.
On October 7, 2022, Canadian Minister of Immigration, Refugees, and Citizenship, the Honourable Sean Fraser, announced a pilot project to temporarily lift the weekly twenty-hour off-campus working limit for international students studying full-time in Canada. The pilot project is set to last just over a year, from November 15, 2022, until December 31, 2023.
Under the Working for Workers’ Act, every covered Ontario employer with twenty-five or more employees is now required to have a written electronic monitoring policy that complies with Part XI.1 of the Employment Standards Act, 2000.
Multistate employers often face the difficult task of finding the most effective way to prepare their handbooks while ensuring compliance not only with federal law, but also with the applicable state, local, and even international laws of the jurisdictions in which they operate. As many multistate employers continue to grow and expand their footprints both nationally and internationally, and as remote work becomes more common across industries, this is one of the challenges they are facing, especially where state laws are quickly evolving.
On October 4, 2022, the Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario (HRTO), released its decision in Weilgosh v. London District Catholic School Board. This HRTO decision was highly anticipated, following the Supreme Court of Canada decision in Northern Regional Health Authority v. Horrocks, in 2021. The Court in Horrocks concluded that unionized employees in Manitoba may not file human rights complaints with the Manitoba Human Rights Commission.
