On August 22, 2025, the US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) published a press release demonstrating its enhanced efforts to protect religious freedom in the workplace. These initiatives include investigating more than 10,000 charges challenging COVID-19 vaccine mandates and pursuing charges and lawsuits involving religious accommodation and antisemitism claims.
As economic shifts and advancements in artificial intelligence reshape workforce needs, executive teams and boards are reevaluating their strategies. Unionized workforces – or those in the process of unionizing – present unique challenges, particularly in light of National Labor Relations Board developments. Careful planning is essential to navigating these uncharted waters.
To help address these challenges, McDermott Will & Schulte’s labor practice recently shared key insights on the legal and strategic considerations at play. View their analysis and presentation here.
Beginning October 1, 2025, California employers must comply with new Fair Employment and Housing Act (FEHA) regulations on the use of artificial intelligence (AI) and automated decision systems in hiring and employment. The rules primarily pertain to three compliance areas: bias testing, recordkeeping, and vendor liability. Employers should start preparing now to avoid exposure once the rules take effect.
On September 10, 2025, Federal Trade Commission (FTC) Chairman Andrew N. Ferguson sent letters to major healthcare employers and staffing agencies, encouraging them to review their use of noncompete agreements and restrictive covenants. He warned that the FTC will pursue enforcement against overly broad or unjustifiably restrictive noncompetes that hinder worker mobility or limit patient choice. This action, among others, signals the FTC’s intent to scrutinize such agreements – particularly in the healthcare sector – on a case-by-case basis.
On July 29, 2025, the US Department of Justice (DOJ) issued a guidance memorandum that defines what it considers to be “unlawful discriminatory policies and practices” under federal civil rights laws. The guidance also includes a list of non-binding “best practices” to help entities decrease the risk of legal violations. While the guidance is primarily geared toward federal funding recipients, the DOJ warns that private employers subject to federal civil rights statutes should review the guidance and ensure their employment practices do not run afoul of federal law.
Learn what implications the DOJ’s guidance has for DEI practices in the private sector.
Artificial intelligence (AI) has increasingly been integrated into the tools used by and for employer-sponsored group health plans, prompting a multitude of concerns. In this article, we discuss key issues that require immediate attention from both plan sponsors and plan administrators.
2025 has seen a flurry of new state laws regulating employee restrictive covenant agreements, especially in the healthcare sector, with many states tightening restrictions but Florida taking a different approach. This diverse legal landscape poses significant challenges for employers, particularly those operating in multiple states, as they must navigate and comply with a patchwork of varying regulations.
As human resources (HR) leaders plan to expand the use of generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) in the workplace, nearly a dozen states have enacted or are considering legislation to regulate its use in employment practices. Additionally, courts are seeing class actions involving alleged disparate impact discrimination and wage and hour violations related to GenAI. Implementing GenAI technologies without understanding their algorithms or data usage can expose employers to legal risks such as potential class actions based on privacy, AI regulations, and employment claims.
On April 21, 2025, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) issued a notice regarding its policy to require all US grant recipients to certify that:
Members of McDermott’s Employment and Health & Life Sciences Groups created a document to help NIH grant recipients evaluate where any company policies and practices need to be changed prior to providing the above-referenced certification.
On April 14, 2025, a federal jury convicted a home health agency executive in a wage-fixing conspiracy under the Sherman Act, marking the US Department of Justice’s first-ever criminal antitrust labor market trial conviction. This conviction marks a significant milestone in antitrust enforcement, highlighting the government’s commitment to addressing labor market wage-fixing and no-poach agreements, and underscores the need for companies to ensure compliance with antitrust laws to avoid legal risks.
Subscribe
