Labor & Employment Developments Blog

Most people have read about artificial intelligence in the media and many have tried out programs like ChatGPT. Some have even used such programs at school or at work. This raises a question of what employment law issues are implicated by the use of AI. To find out, I asked ChatGPT the following question: “What employment law issues are raised by use of artificial intelligence programs?” ChatGPT dutifully produced a list of seven (7) issues, which I will comment on in this episode. 

In Groff v. DeJoy, decided today, the U.S. Supreme Court clarified the standard for employers to determine what constitutes an undue burden that would permit an employer to reject an employee’s request for a religious accommodation. Under Title VII, employers are required to reasonably accommodate an employee’s religious observance or practice if it is possible to do so without “undue hardship” on the conduct of the employer’s business. Until today, the seminal case on Title VII religious accommodations was the 1977 Supreme Court decision in Trans World Airlines Inc., v. Hardison. That case established the well-known standard that an employer is not obligated to grant a religious accommodation if the accommodation would create more than a “de minimis” burden on the employer’s operations. 

If you follow the news, you are probably aware that non-compete agreements are under attack on several levels. This episode will consider three primary sources of these attacks on non-compete agreements:

1. The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) Proposed Rule banning non-compete agreements;
2. The NLRB General Counsel Memorandum GC 23-08 (May 30, 2023) indicating that non-compete agreements may violate section 7 of the National Labor Relations Act; and
3. State laws banning or curtailing enforcement of non-compete agreements.

See the FTC Proposed Rule here.

See the NLRB General Counsel ...