Proposed Wisconsin Employment Legislation

Employment law, more than most other areas of the law, involves a constantly shiftingand evolving legal landscape. Lawyers of the employment law group at Petrie & Stocking are vigilant as to those employment law changes which might impactour clients. We also monitor pending legislation so that we can alert our clients andbe ready for any employment law changes that may occur down the road. Presently, there are bills pending before the Wisconsin Legislature which may have an impact upon both employers and employees:

Assembly Bill 667 and Senate Bill 367 - credit history discrimination. Introduced in the Assembly on August 12, 2009, and in the Senate on August 26, 2009. These bills would amend Ch. 111 of the Wisconsin Statutes by banning employment discrimination on the basis of credit history, (defined as information provided in a consumer report under the Fair Credit Reporting Act), unless thecredit history is “substantially related” to the job that an individual holds or for which he/she hasapplied.

Assembly Bill 30 - e-mail monitoring. Introduced in the Assembly on February 5, 2009. This bill would ban an employer from monitoring employee e-mail without an employee’s written consent; even then, it would ban monitoring that is triggered by union organizing or protected activity and would ban monitoring strictly personal e-mail, once it had been determined that the e-mail was not work-related.

Assembly Bill 152 and Senate Bill 108 - restricting overtime for health care workers. Introducedin March 2009, these bills would prohibit health care facilities (broadly defined to include entities suchas assisted living facilities and adult family homes, as well as hospitals and hospices) from requiringnon-exempt health care workers to work overtime or on-call time unless they agree to do so.

At Petrie & Stocking S.C., we continually monitor proposed and recently passed employment lawlegislation so that we will be in the best possible position to help you navigate this ever changinglandscape. We look forward to the opportunity to be of service.

Tom Halloran