🔒3 new employment laws CT employers must know about in 2022

Three new employment laws are forecasted to occupy a good deal of employers’ time this year.

These laws impose new requirements on employers and require revisions to policies and procedures to ensure compliance, maintain operational efficiency and avoid legal exposure.

Paid family leave

There are several changes coming to Connecticut’s Family Medical Leave law. Under the revised law, leave will be available to far more employees, and the length and methodology for how leave is computed has been redefined.

Perhaps most significantly, Connecticut’s family medical leave laws now include a paid component under the Connecticut Paid Family and Medical Leave Act (PFMLA).

Under the PFMLA, which applies to most Connecticut employers with at least one employee, eligible workers may now apply to the CT Paid Leave Authority (online at ctpaidleave.org or via phone) to receive paid benefits to replace their income when they are out of work due to childbirth, or to seek treatment for serious health conditions for themself or a family member.

Previously, the state’s family medical leave was unpaid unless employees had paid time off available. Employees may be eligible to receive up to 12 weeks of paid leave in a 12-month period (plus two additional weeks for certain pregnancy-related conditions).

The new law also expands the list of who qualifies as a “family member” to include: siblings, parents-in-law, grandparents and grandchildren, and any other “individual related to the employee by blood or affinity whose close association the employee shows to be the equivalent of those family relationships.”

Based on this, employers should revise their leave policies to conform to the changes in the law and educate employees about the availability of paid benefits.

Employers may also be asked to provide information from the Paid Leave Authority when employees apply for benefits. Organizations may need to prepare for more employees being absent from work for extended periods.

This may include making changes to staffing to prevent unanticipated disruptions, and implementing more robust procedures to require and track leave certifications from healthcare providers.

Salary range disclosures

Connecticut employers are also now required to begin providing job applicants and current employees with wage ranges at various points throughout the employment process.

This new requirement is intended to increase pay equity in several ways, including by eliminating sex-based compensation discrimination.

With regard to job applicants, employers must provide the wage range for the position the applicant is applying to upon the applicant’s request, or prior to, or at the time a compensation offer is made.

Likewise, employers must provide current workers with a wage range for the employee’s position upon a position change or the employee’s first request for a wage range.

“Wage range” is defined as “the range of wages an employer anticipates relying on when setting wages for a position.” There are a variety of ways to set the range, which are described in more detail in the law.

In preparing to comply with these new obligations, organizations should examine their internal protocols, including those related to onboarding, hiring and recruiting, and formulate new procedures for responding to wage range requests.

Employers should also take the time to compile wage ranges for each position, so they have the information they need available when required to disclose it.

Age-based inquiries

The legislature also recently passed a bill that makes it a discriminatory act to request a prospective employee’s age, date of birth, dates of attendance, or date of graduation from an educational institution on an initial employment application.

This new law is aimed to prevent age-based discrimination in the pre-employment process.

An employer may still inquire about an applicant’s age if it is requesting or requiring such information “based on a bona fide occupational qualification or need,” or if such information is required to comply with any provision of state or federal law.

To avoid running afoul of this new law, employers should immediately review their job applications to remove any improper questions and train those interviewing applicants to avoid the types of now-prohibited age-based inquiries during the pre-employment process.

Megan Y. Carannante and Zachary T. Zeid are labor and employment attorneys at law firm Pullman & Comley LLC.