50 Employment Laws in 50 States

Now you can INSTANTLY discover your legal obligations under the 50 most important employment laws in each of the 50 states.

50 Employment Laws in 50 States, 2024 Edition is the revolutionary guidebook that puts ALL the most need-to-know employment law information — for each of the 50 states — right at your fingertips.

Imagine the time and frustration you'll save with this authoritative, instant-information reference. In just seconds, you'll zero in on the precise information you need whenever you must:

• Create a new policy
• Verify the compliance of an existing policy
• Expand your operations
• Audit your procedures
• Support recommendations to senior management
• Advise colleagues at field offices, branches, and stores.
• Stay comfortably up-to-date with increasingly complicated state employment laws
• Online password privacy

This quick-reference guide puts the expertise of the nationwide Employers Counsel Network right at your fingertips. The top-flight attorneys in the Network focus almost exclusively on defending employers and write the Employment Law Letter for their state. They have applied their valuable time and resources to making this side-by-side comparison of employer obligations the definitive reference.

With 50 Employment Laws in 50 States, 2024 Edition, you get the exact guidance you need whenever you need to understand ANY state law concerning:

Automatic Updates Keep Your Guide Current
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Major Changes for 2024

Equal Pay: States continue to add or expanded existing equal pay laws, with elements like salary history and pay transparency leading the recent trends. Almost half the states have laws with provisions include prohibiting asking applicants for salary history, relying on salary history to set compensation, and discipling employee who discuss pay with coworkers. More recently, states have been adopting salary transparency laws. These laws vary by state and can include requiring employers to disclose the pay range of a position to applicants, sometimes in the job postings, as well as to internal employees. To be sure you are compliant, consult chapter 16 on Equal Pay chapter 38 on Preemployment Inquiries.

Marijuana: Most states have some form of legalization for medical and/or recreational purposes. The only holdouts are Idaho, Wyoming, Kansas, and South Carolina. Find the latest updates on which states allow the use of Marijuana in Chapter 24. Additionally, many states have laws prohibiting discrimination against workers for using medical marijuana, and 9 states have laws protecting recreational marijuana users. Several states protect employees and applicants with a positive drug test, while other states expressly allow employers to require THC-free workplaces. Even if marijuana is illegal in your state, your employees could use it legally while visiting another state. That leaves you with many complicated issues to sort out when it comes to drug testing applicants and employees. Before you make any decisions or update your policies, check out chapter 12, which covers regulations on Drug and Alcohol Testing, as well as chapter 32, which addresses whether you can take an employee’s legal Off-Duty Conduct into consideration when making employment decisions.

Leave: States continued to complicate employer leave obligations by expanding existing leave laws and creating new ones. New obligations include broadened definitions of “family members” that employees may take time off to care for under family and medical leave laws as well as mandatory bereavement leave and time off for dealing with situations related to domestic violence. See what your obligations are by reviewing chapter 17, which covers Family and Medical Leave, chapter 42, which covers Sick Leave and Other Paid Time Off, and chapter 43, which covers Small Necessities Leave, including domestic violence leave.

Protections Expanding: A continuing trend that affects almost all employers is the expansion of protected characteristics. Almost half the states have laws that have passed laws prohibiting discrimination based on certain hair types commonly associated with race, including braids, twists, locs, afros, and textured hair. Other new protected characteristics have included immigration status, association with members of a protected group, and pregnancy and related medical conditions. Find out what is included in your state’s discrimination protections in chapter 10 on Discrimination and chapter 45 on Title VII Equivalents.

Your Editor and Contributors

50 Employment Laws in 50 States is prepared by leading attorneys, many of them members of the Employers Counsel Network, a nationwide affiliation of prestigious law firms representing management in employment law matters. Their contributions are edited by Celeste Duke.

Celeste Duke, SPHR, is the Editor of a number of BLR publications. She has written about human resources for a variety of publications, including Basic Training for Supervisors and Frontline Supervision.

She has written and edited a series of white papers covering employment trends and developments and manages the editorial content for BLR’s online training.

Before coming to BLR, she was the business editor for The Daily Herald in Columbia, Tennessee. Celeste earned her bachelor’s degree from David Lipscomb University and a master’s from Middle Tennessee State University, where she also taught writing.

Following is a list of those who were most instrumental in the completion of this book. We thank them for their continued perseverance in this project.

• Alabama:  Lehr Middlebrooks Vreeland & Thompson, P.C.
• Alaska: Davis Wright Tremaine LLP
• Arizona: Tiffany & Bosco, P.A.
• Arkansas: Mitchell Williams
• Colorado: Holland & Hart LLP
• Connecticut: Carlton Fields
• Delaware: Young Conaway Stargatt & Taylor, LLP
• District of Columbia: Whiteford, Taylor & Preston L.L.P.
• Florida: Sniffen and Spellman
• Georgia: Thompson Hine LLP and Barnes & Thornburg LLP and Christopher Butler LLC
• Hawaii: Cades Schutte LLP
• Idaho: Parsons Behle & Latimer
• Iowa: Denton Davis Brown
• Kansas: Foulston Siefkin LLP
• Kentucky: Frost Brown Todd LLC
• Louisiana: Jones Walker
• Maine: Brann & Isaacson
• Maryland: Whiteford, Taylor & Preston L.L.P.
• Massachusetts: Skoler, Abbott & Presser, P.C.
• Michigan: Bodman PLC
• Minnesota: Felhaber Larson
• Mississippi: The Kullman Firm
• Missouri: Armstrong Teasdale LLP
• Montana: Ritchie Manning Kautz PLLP
• Nebraska: Erickson | Sederstrom, P.C.
• New Hampshire: Sheehan Phinney Bass & Green PA.
• New Jersey: Genova Burns LLC
• North Carolina: Womble Bond Dickinson (US) LLP
• North Dakota: Vogel Law Firm
• Ohio: Porter Wright Morris & Arthur LLP
• Oklahoma: McAfee & Taft
• Oregon: Perkins Coie LLP
• Pennsylvania: Saul Ewing Arnstein & Lehr LLP
• Rhode Island: Whelan Corrente & Flanders LLP
• South Carolina: Burr & Forman LLP
• Texas: Monty & Ramirez LLP
• Utah: Kirton McConkie
• Vermont:Dinse P.C.
• Virginia: DiMuroGinsberg, P.C.
• West Virginia: Steptoe & Johnson PLLC
• Wisconsin: Axley Brynelson, LLP
• Wyoming: Holland & Hart LLP
• Canada: Fasken Martineau DuMoulin LLP