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Why COVID Whistleblowers Need Extra Legal Protection

The COVID-19 pandemic has affected nearly every facet of American life – and every facet of U.S. law to boot. As employee rights lawyers, we have seen the myriad ways coronavirus has impacted workers. Regulatory violations are on the rise and employees are blowing the whistle (where we get the term “whistleblower”) on corporate fraud...

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Can Employers Require You to Get Antibody Tested for COVID-19?

Employers and employees alike have had to comply with evolving health protocols as the world has dealt with the coronavirus pandemic. You have likely learned a number of new medical terms, been informed about symptoms, screening methods, and followed the rush to get most of the world vaccinated. One new term to add to our...

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Congress’s New COVID-19 Relief Package

After months of partisan deadlock, Congress finally passed a new coronavirus relief package at the eleventh hour (narrowly avoiding a government shutdown and a lapse in benefits for many Americans). While the direct payments portion of the bill was covered (and fought over) extensively, many are unaware of the provisions of this second relief package....

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CDC & OSHA Guidelines for Returning to Work

Whether you are returning to work or have been working since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, you probably have questions about safety. It is important that your employer take precautions to ensure the safety of all employees, as well as customers, if they want to re-open a brick-and-mortar location.

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Yes, Your Employer May Be Able to Require You to Get a COVID-19 Vaccine … But It Depends.

As vaccines for COVID-19 begin rolling out across the country, many employees may be asking whether their employers can mandate vaccinations in order to return to work. Because COVID-19 has devastated the U.S. and global economy, the vaccine has the potential to restore the millions of jobs lost to the still-raging pandemic. According to a...

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Contact Tracing and Employee Privacy

In the simplest possible terms, contact tracing is a way of tracking all the individuals who have come into contact with an infected or contagious person. Given the current pandemic, contact tracing – and particularly contact tracing apps – have grown in popularity as countries are trying to find safe ways to return to a...

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Mandatory COVID-19 Vaccination Policies: Are They Legal in the Workplace?

UPDATE: The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission recently published guidance on this issue. Please see our December 22 blog post for up-to-date information on the question of mandatory vaccines. In May, Operation Warp Speed, a program with the goal of producing “300 million doses of safe and effective vaccines with the initial doses available by January...

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How to Protect Yourself at Work During a Pandemic

Health, wealth, and happiness: It’s what most of us strive for. But 2020 has made attaining each especially hard. Many have lost their jobs, their income, and experienced depression at staggering rates. If you have been fortunate enough to keep working throughout the pandemic, you probably have another concern: staying healthy while interacting with others...