Labor & Employment Law Update

All Wisconsin employers know the basics of the state’s workers’ compensation statute. If an employee is hurt on the job, they may be entitled to benefits under workers’ compensation insurance. However, many don’t realize that if they fail to bring the employee back to work when suitable employment is available, the employer may be exposed to liability in the form of paying the employee up to one year of wages and benefits. This risk comes from Wisconsin’s Unreasonable Refusal to Rehire (URR) statute. Although the consequences of this statute are significant, it is frequently overlooked until it is too late.

Several changes impacting employers in jurisdictions across the nation are summarized in our latest blog post.

Federal and state prevailing wage mandates are colliding on construction projects in Illinois, exposing owners, developers, and contractors to conflicting compliance obligations and increased project costs. With the enactment of Illinois HB 1189, projects that long fell exclusively under the federal prevailing wage law (Davis-Bacon) may now also be subject to the state’s prevailing wage law mandates.

While the Illinois Department of Labor (IDOL) has issued guidance for contractors, there is little clarity on how to reconcile fundamental and incompatible differences between state and federal prevailing wage laws. Contractors operating in this environment must understand where these mandates conflict and take deliberate steps to protect pricing, performance, and profitability.

If your company offers health benefits, someone has probably asked about GLP‑1 coverage in the last six months. The drugs work, employees want access, and the sticker price through traditional pharmacy channels can run north of $1,000 per month per employee. Direct‑to‑consumer platforms like TrumpRx.gov, Hims, Lilly Direct, and NovoCare now offer the same medications between $149 and $449 per month, cash pay. The obvious question: can we reimburse employees through an HRA for purchases made through these channels?

On April 22, 2026, the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) issued a proposed rule that would set a single standard for joint employer status under the FLSA, FMLA, and the Migrant and Seasonal Agricultural Worker Protection Act (“MSPA”). The proposed rule would offer clarity for employers around when multiple employers are jointly responsible for protecting employee wages and other rights.

The U.S. Department of Labor has revised OSHA’s National Emphasis Program (NEP) on outdoor and indoor heat-related hazards, signaling that OSHA will continue enforcing heat safety through inspections rather than the rollout of a new federal heat standard.

The updated NEP, which takes effect immediately and continues through April 10, 2031, refines how OSHA targets employers for heat-related inspections when the heat index is expected to be 80 degrees or higher.

In the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2024 Muldrow v. City of St. Louis decision, the Court expanded the legal standard for what qualifies as an “adverse employment action” by pivoting from asking whether a change to an employee’s terms or conditions of employment was “material” to whether  the change left the employee worse off in those terms or conditions. Unsurprisingly, employers saw a surge of challenges to everyday management decisions in the immediate aftermath.

The First Circuit’s recent decision in Walsh v. HNTB Corp., however, offers an important clarification that should hopefully serve as a blueprint for other courts dealing with this influx of questionable lawsuits.

The U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) recently posted a new factsheet making significant changes to Form I-9 inspections and which “mistakes” are correctable under the Immigration and Nationality Act § 274A (“Immigration Act”). ICE reclassified many Form I-9 errors from “technical” to “substantive.” The impact is that clerical mistakes that employers formerly could correct during a Form I-9 audit are no longer correctable and instead are subject to immediate fines during a Form I-9 audit.

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If U.S. employment laws feel impossible to keep up with, you’re not imagining things. Between federal, state, and local laws and shifting agency guidance, even well-intentioned employers can find themselves in violation of labor and employment laws without realizing it.

You probably can’t fix the system, but you can protect your business from unnecessary risk and expense. The key is investing in prevention, empowering the right people, and acting decisively before small issues escalate.