Retaliating Against Employees Who Exercise Their Rights in Response to COVID-19
As society continues to traverse the unchartered waters created by the COVID-19 outbreak across the country, federal and state laws have endorsed more protection for employees in these unprecedented times.
At the federal level, employees should be aware that the Company may not retaliate against them, based on the recently enacted Families First Coronavirus Response Act (“FFCRA”). The FFCRA provides certain benefits to eligible employees of covered employers, including requiring paid sick leave under certain scenarios for employees impacted by COVID-19, as well as expanded/enhanced FMLA benefits related to COVID-19 that apply to employers and employees not previously covered by FMLA.
In addition, an employer may not discharge, discipline, or otherwise discriminate or retaliate in any manner against an employee who takes paid sick leave or expanded FMLA leave under the FFCRA, files a complaint or institutes a proceeding under or related to the FFCRA.
Similarly, employees are provided further protection under recently enacted New Jersey state law. On March 20, 2020, New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy signed into law new anti-retaliation legislation with respect to the novel coronavirus, which prohibits employers from discharging, demoting, or otherwise penalizing an employee for requesting or taking time off, based on the recommendation of a licensed medical professional, because he or she has, or is likely to have, COVID-19.
The law also includes a job restoration clause that ensures the employee will be reinstated to the position he or she held when the leave commenced, with no reduction in seniority, status, benefits, pay, or other terms or conditions of employment.
Beyond those specific anti-retaliation proscriptions written into law as a result of the coronavirus pandemic, employees are protected by additional pre-COVID-19 laws application that may be implicated by this crisis, including but not limited to state “whistleblower” protection statutes such as New Jersey’s Conscientious Employee Protection Act (“CEPA”). The act prohibits all public and private employers in New Jersey from retaliating against any employee because that employee has engaged in certain protected activities set forth in the statute.
One significant way in which CEPA may be triggered is if an employer discharges or takes other adverse employment action against an employee who has complained about, objected to, or disclosed (or threatened to disclose) an employer’s practices or activities that the employee reasonably and in good faith believes violate the stringent limitations and restrictions imposed by way of Governor Philip Murphy’s executive order(s), including Executive Order 107, issued on March 21, 2020. Governor Murphy has expressly encouraged and invited employees (and others) to report potential violations of Executive Order 107 to the State’s attention by filing a complaint through the State’s website.
Executive Order 107 requires that all businesses that remain open and operating must “accommodate their workforce, wherever practicable, for telework or work-from-home arrangements,” and further provides that “[t]o the extent a business . . . has employees that cannot perform their functions via telework or work-from-home arrangements, the business . . . should make best efforts to reduce staff on site to the minimal number necessary to ensure that essential operations can continue.”
If you have any questions regarding your employment or termination, please contact us at mschley@schleylaw.com or at 732-325-0318.