Category Archives: Equal Employment Opportunity Commission

Artificial Intelligence, Employment policies, Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA), Independent Contractors, Non-compete agreements, Wage and Hour Issues

Evolving Landscape of Employment Law: Key Updates for 2025

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If you’re an employ­er or an employ­ee, keep­ing up with employ­ment law changes can feel like chas­ing a mov­ing tar­get. With new court deci­sions, leg­isla­tive updates, and evolv­ing work­place norms, it’s more impor­tant than ever to stay informed. As we set­tle into 2025, here are some of the most sig­nif­i­cant devel­op­ments shap­ing employ­ment law across the country—and par­tic­u­lar­ly in West Virginia.

1. Remote Work and Wage & Hour Compliance

The pan­dem­ic may be in the rearview mir­ror, but remote and hybrid work are here to stay. That shift has raised fresh legal ques­tions, par­tic­u­lar­ly when it comes to wage and hour compliance.

A major trend we’re see­ing is increased scruti­ny from the U.S. Depart­ment of Labor (DOL) regard­ing remote work­ers’ over­time eli­gi­bil­i­ty. The Fair Labor Stan­dards Act (FLSA) requires employ­ers to track hours worked accu­rate­ly, but when employ­ees are log­ging in from home, com­pli­ance gets tricky. Employ­ers must ensure that non-exempt employ­ees are prop­er­ly record­ing breaks, over­time, and any “off-the-clock” work.

West Vir­ginia busi­ness­es with remote employ­ees should take a close look at their time-track­ing poli­cies to avoid poten­tial wage claims. Even an hon­est mistake—like fail­ing to count time spent respond­ing to emails after hours—can lead to cost­ly litigation.

2. Noncompete Agreements Under Fire

Non­com­pete agree­ments have been a hot-but­ton issue in recent years, and 2025 is shap­ing up to be a turn­ing point. The Fed­er­al Trade Com­mis­sion (FTC) issued a rule (April 2024) with a near­ly com­pre­hen­sive nation­wide ban on most non­com­pete claus­es, argu­ing that they sti­fle job mobil­i­ty and wage growth. 

I will dis­cuss below the legal chal­lenges to the FTC rule, but employ­ers should review their exist­ing agree­ments and con­sid­er whether non­com­petes are still enforce­able (in light of applic­a­ble state law and the prospect of the FTC rule sur­viv­ing legal attacks) or if alter­na­tive protections—such as con­fi­den­tial­i­ty and non­so­lic­i­ta­tion clauses—are a bet­ter approach.

Sta­tus of the FTC rule

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Age Discrimination, Americans with Disabilities Act, Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964

EEOC has updated its poster that employers must display

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The Unit­ed States Equal Employ­ment Oppor­tu­ni­ty Com­mis­sion (“EEOC”) has updat­ed its poster that employ­ers are required to dis­play in their work­places. Here is the EEOC’s web site on its poster. Here is an inter­net (HTML) copy of the poster. Here is the PDF of the print­able poster for wall dis­play. The name of the poster is “Know Your Rights: Work­place Dis­crim­i­na­tion is Illegal”.

The poster does a good job of edu­cat­ing employ­ees and employ­ers on essen­tial aspects of the fed­er­al anti-dis­crim­i­na­tion laws. It cov­ers what employ­ees are pro­tect­ed, what employ­ers are cov­ered, the pro­tect­ed char­ac­ter­is­tics about which the laws pro­hib­it dis­crim­i­na­tion, the deci­sions and con­duct of the employ­ers that are pro­hib­it­ed, and how an employ­ee can file a charge with the EEOC. In light of new­er tech­nol­o­gy, the poster has a QR code so an employ­ee can user a phone to jump straight to the EEOC’s web site for fil­ing a charge.

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