Labor and Employment Insights

Analysis and practical guides on labor and employment.

37 articles, checklists, and guides on labor and employment law, written by the attorneys at MC Law. Every piece is general information, not legal advice — for a specific matter, contact the firm.

Labor and EmploymentDiscrimination

Pregnancy Discrimination in the Workplace

Pregnancy discrimination law changed more between 2023 and 2025 than in the four decades before it, and this guide brings the whole picture current. It explains the Pregnancy Discrimination Act and its "treat-her-like-everyone-else" command, the Supreme Court's accommodation framework from Young v. UPS, and the landmark Pregnant Workers Fairness Act of 2023 with the EEOC's 2024 final rule that finally created an affirmative duty to accommodate pregnancy, childbirth, and related conditions. It covers the PUMP Act's lactation protections, how the FMLA and ADA fit alongside these statutes, and the patchwork of stronger state laws. Worked hypotheticals show how the doctrines play out for real employers and employees, and a practical walk-through covers the EEOC charge process, remedies, damages caps, and prevention. Written so a judge, an HR director, and a worried expectant employee can all follow it, the guide is current to 2026 and flags where the law is still moving.

Casey Scott McKayJune 25, 202643 min read

Labor and EmploymentWorkers Compensation

Workers Compensation Toolkit: For Injured Workers and Employers

This toolkit assembles the working documents of a workers compensation matter, in the order they are needed, with the language that actually produces results. It includes the written notice of injury, the average weekly wage audit worksheet, the utilization review appeal that reverses denials, the treating physician narrative request, the light-duty offer letter, the impairment rating challenge, a settlement comparison worksheet that prices future medical against cash, and the lien and future credit negotiation letters used when a third-party case runs alongside the claim. It serves injured workers, employers building a return-to-work program, and counsel on either side.

Casey Scott McKayJune 15, 202611 min read

Labor and EmploymentHR Policies

Background Check and Adverse Action Checklist: A Practical Checklist

Background check compliance fails on formatting and sequencing rather than on judgment, which is why the violations are uniform and the cases are classes. The disclosure must sit alone on its own page; the report and the current summary of rights must be delivered before any decision is communicated; a real waiting period must elapse; and the adverse action notice must contain four specific elements. This checklist covers each in the order the process runs, adds the individualized assessment that federal guidance and a growing number of state and local fair chance laws require, and includes the governance items — a written targeted screen, vendor audit rights, and coverage confirmation — that convert an isolated failure into a defensible program. It also maps the state and municipal fair chance rules that layer additional timing, individualized assessment, and notice requirements on top of the federal sequence.

Casey Scott McKayMay 24, 20269 min read

Labor and EmploymentPolicies and Procedures

Multistate Employment Compliance Toolkit

One employee working in a new state makes a company a multistate employer subject to that state's entire employment regime, its payroll tax registrations, and usually its corporate income and sales tax nexus, from the first day of work. Most companies discover this one state at a time, through a notice. This toolkit builds the program that prevents it: establishing where employees actually work and controlling where they may work, running the registration sequence before the first paycheck, layering the wage and hour and leave differences that catch employers paying only weekly overtime, handling pay transparency and restrictive covenant limits that reach remote postings and relocations, building a handbook architecture with state addenda that stays current, and choosing whether to build the compliance function or buy it. It closes with the relocation checklist and the legislative tracking cadence that keep the program current once the initial cleanup is done.

Casey Scott McKayMay 15, 202613 min read

Labor and EmploymentTermination and Layoffs

Conducting a Reduction in Force: WARN, Selection Criteria, and Releases

A reduction in force is a project with a legal structure, and the sequence matters as much as the substance. This guide walks it from the business decision through the last separation. It covers the WARN Act and its state analogues, including the aggregation rules that turn a series of small layoffs into a mass layoff, the notice content requirements, and the exceptions that rarely apply. It then covers the selection process, which is where discrimination exposure is created or avoided, including how to define the decisional unit, apply objective criteria, and conduct an adverse impact analysis under privilege before the decisions are final. Later sections address severance design and the OWBPA requirements that make an age release valid, the group disclosure that surprises employers, notification logistics, and the post-separation obligations that continue long after the announcement.

Casey Scott McKayMay 9, 202627 min read

Labor and EmploymentWage and Hour

Wage and Hour Self-Audit Checklist: A Practical Checklist

Most wage and hour exposure is created by a system configured once and never tested, not by a decision anyone made to underpay. The classifications were set when the roles were created, the payroll system was configured at implementation, and the rounding rule has run untouched for six years. This checklist tests each of them. It works through exempt classification against the duties test rather than the job description, the regular rate calculation that catches employers who pay overtime diligently and still get it wrong, timekeeping practices including rounding and automatic meal deductions and remote work, the compensability of travel and on-call and training time, contractor classification, deductions, and recordkeeping. It closes with quantifying an exposure and the choices available for remediation.

Casey Scott McKayApril 4, 202610 min read

Labor and EmploymentPolicies and Procedures

Managing a Multistate Remote Workforce

A single employee working from a state where the company has no other presence makes that company a multistate employer subject to that state's entire employment regime, its tax registration requirements, and frequently its business income tax. Most companies discover this after the fact, one state at a time, through a notice. This guide covers the framework: why the employee's physical work location governs almost everything, the registrations that must be completed before the first paycheck, how payroll tax withholding and the convenience-of-the-employer rule interact across state lines, which wage and hour and leave obligations change by state, what happens to non-competes and pay transparency and expense reimbursement, and how to build a policy that controls where employees may work rather than discovering it later. It closes with the structural questions most companies never decide consciously — how many states to support, and whether to build the compliance function or buy it — and with a relocation checklist.

Casey Scott McKayMarch 24, 202625 min read

Labor and EmploymentHR Policies

Employee Handbook Drafting Checklist: A Practical Checklist

An employee handbook is the most-read legal document most workers ever encounter, and a careless one quietly surrenders the at-will defense, violates federal labor law, or becomes Exhibit A in a discrimination suit. This checklist walks a drafter through the whole job in order: scoping and architecture, the at-will disclaimer and the implied-contract traps from Toussaint and Woolley, the load-bearing policies (EEO and anti-harassment built for the Faragher/Ellerth defense, ADA accommodation, FMLA and the wider leave landscape, wage-hour with an FLSA safe harbor, PTO, code of conduct, confidentiality), drafting work rules narrowly enough to survive the NLRB's Stericycle standard, the acknowledgment form, arbitration placement, the multistate maze, and a review cadence. Each phase pairs checkboxes with the WHY and the traps, plus common mistakes and primary authority. It closes with related mclaw.io resources.

Casey Scott McKayFebruary 28, 202612 min read

Labor and EmploymentWage and Hour

Complying with Pay Transparency and Pay Equity Laws

Two related bodies of law now govern compensation. Pay equity statutes prohibit paying employees differently for comparable work absent a legitimate justification, and most state versions have broadened the comparison standard well beyond the federal equal-work test while narrowing the available defenses. Pay transparency statutes require employers to disclose pay ranges in job postings, to employees on request, and in some jurisdictions to report aggregate pay data to the state. This guide explains both, identifies where the state requirements differ in ways that matter operationally, walks through how to conduct a privileged pay audit and what to do with the results, and sets out the compensation infrastructure — job architecture, pay bands, documented criteria, and approval discipline — that makes compliance sustainable rather than a recurring emergency.

Casey Scott McKayFebruary 3, 202626 min read

Labor and EmploymentPolicies and Procedures

Remote Work Policy Checklist: A Practical Checklist

A remote work policy does two jobs. It sets expectations about how people work, which is a management question, and it controls where they work, which is a legal one — because an employee's physical work location determines the applicable employment law, the payroll registrations, the workers compensation coverage, and frequently the company's tax nexus. Most policies do the first job and skip the second. This checklist covers both: eligibility and approval, the approved work locations list and the reporting obligation that makes it enforceable, hours and timekeeping for non-exempt remote employees, expenses and equipment, home workspace safety and workers compensation, information security and monitoring, international work restrictions, and the acknowledgment and maintenance that keep the policy current.

Casey Scott McKayDecember 7, 20259 min read

Labor and EmploymentDiscrimination

Age Discrimination Basics

This guide explains how age discrimination law works in the American workplace, centered on the federal Age Discrimination in Employment Act (ADEA) and its companion, the Older Workers Benefit Protection Act (OWBPA). It walks through who is protected (workers 40 and older), which employers are covered (generally those with 20 or more employees), and the two main ways a claim can be proved—intentional disparate treatment and facially neutral disparate impact. It unpacks the demanding "but-for" causation standard the Supreme Court imposed in Gross v. FBL Financial, the special rules for layoffs and severance waivers, the harassment and retaliation protections that ride alongside the core ban, and the unusual ADEA collective-action mechanism borrowed from the Fair Labor Standards Act. It maps the EEOC charge process and its short deadlines, the remedies a worker can win (and the ones the ADEA pointedly withholds), and the many ways state law goes further than the federal floor. Worked examples and a plain-English FAQ make the doctrine usable for workers, managers, and counsel alike.

Casey Scott McKayOctober 31, 202552 min read

Labor and EmploymentHarassment

Workplace Harassment and Hostile Work Environment Claims

Harassment law is misunderstood in both directions. Employees often believe any unpleasant boss violates the law, and employers often believe a written policy is a defense by itself. Neither is right. This article explains what a hostile work environment claim actually requires, why the severe or pervasive standard is objective and subjective at once, and how the Supreme Court's decisions from Meritor through Oncale built the modern framework. It covers the Faragher-Ellerth affirmative defense in detail, including why it is unavailable when a tangible employment action occurred and why Vance v. Ball State made the definition of supervisor decisive. It then addresses retaliation, which is now the most frequently alleged claim in EEOC charges and which reaches conduct the harassment standard would not, and the expansion of protected characteristics after Bostock and of the adverse action standard after Muldrow. The second half is operational: the anti-harassment policy and complaint procedure that actually earn the defense, how to run an investigation, what to document, the recent federal statutes limiting arbitration and nondisclosure of harassment claims, and the administrative process from charge through right-to-sue letter. It closes with a worked example, checklists, an FAQ, and related reading.

Casey Scott McKayJune 11, 202525 min read