Our Labor, Employment and Immigration group is on the front lines advising employers on all aspects of the COVID-19 pandemic, both nationally and internationally. We work seamlessly together and with our other specialized practice groups, such as privacy and cybersecurity, to address the issues relating to COVID-19 across practices and across industries from healthcare to e-commerce, financial services to retail and big box to startup.
As part of the firm’s multidisciplinary COVID-19 Task Force, we have been advising clients on such issues as federal, state and local “shelter-in-place” orders; workplace safety and OSHA compliance; action plans re COVID-19 among workers; employee health testing and collection of medical information; dealing with law enforcement, workforce reductions and WARN, furloughs, unemployment, benefits and sick pay policies; FMLA and state and city leave laws, wage/hour compliance; remote work policies; the Families First Coronavirus Response Act; quarantine, childcare issues, refusals to work, all in real time. We are advising employers on navigating the rules for employment verification in the I-9 process and E-Verify in the current environment. For employers with foreign talent, we are advising on strategies and protocols to ensure that employers can retain key foreign national employees, maintain their work authorization and comply with the full range of related requirements. We pride ourselves in working with employers to navigate the complex web of international, federal, state and local laws and to make pragmatic, business-minded decisions on sticky issues, sometimes without precedent.
