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On May 19, 2017, a bill to codify the statute of limitations for claims filed pursuant to the New Jersey Law Against Discrimination (NJLAD) and prohibit certain waiver provisions in employment contracts, advanced in the New Jersey Legislature.

The Superior Court of New Jersey, Appellate Division, recently invalidated a regulation of the New Jersey Unemployment Compensation Act (UCA) that attempted to define, for the first time in codified form, the concept of “simple misconduct” by an employee that can limit his or her eligibility for unemployment benefits under the UCA.

On January 19, 2017, and on February 13, 2017, two bills (A4515 and S3014) were introduced in the New Jersey Legislature that would amend the New Jersey Law Against Discrimination to specifically prohibit employers from discriminating between employees on the basis of sex by paying “a rate of compensation, including benefits, which is less than the rate paid to employees of the other sex for substantially similar work, when viewed as a composite of skill, effort and responsibility.”

New Jersey employers wishing to have employees sign jury-waiver agreements should take note of a recent Appellate Division decision, Noren v. Heartland Payment Systems, Inc., which reaffirms that a jury-waiver provision (like an arbitration provision) must include clear, unambiguous, and sufficiently broad language to encompass all employment-related claims.

On January 19, 2017, the New Jersey Assembly Labor Committee advanced a bill (A-4410) that would require written contracts between “freelance workers” and their hiring entity (“client”). Those contracts would need to include (i) an itemization of all services to be provided by the freelance worker; (ii) a description of how the freelancer worker’s compensation will be calculated; and (iii) the date on which the client will pay the freelance worker or the mechanism by which that date will be calculated. The bill defines a freelance worker as any “sole proprietor who is not an employee and who is hired or retained as a freelance worker by a client to provide services in exchange for compensation in an amount equal to or greater than $600.”