MI’s Impending Repeal of Right-to-Work, UT’s Prohibition on Employer Use of Vaccination Status & More

MI to Repeal Right-to-Work Law

Michigan is poised to become the first state in almost 60 years to repeal a right-to-work law, after the state’s Democrat-led Legislature approved a bill (HB 4005) along party lines last week that would repeal the 2012 Republican-backed law barring unions in the state from requiring membership as a condition of employment. Gov. Gretchen Whitmer (D) said she planned to sign the measure into law. Some business groups and labor opponents are considering an effort to put a measure on the state’s 2024 ballot enshrining right-to-work in the state’s Constitution. (DETROIT NEWS, MLIVE, NEW YORK TIMES, PLURIBUS NEWS, STATE NET)

UT Bars Employer Use of Vaccination Status

Utah Gov. Spencer Cox (R) signed a bill (HB 131) this month prohibiting most private employers from considering vaccination status when making employment decisions, including those related to hiring and determining compensation. The measure provides some exemptions, such as for employers that are federal contractors and for entities that would violate mandatory requirements for funding from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services or the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention by complying with the law. (SHRM, STATE NET)

NLRB Warns Employers to Exercise Care with Severance Agreements

In a memo to agency staff National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) General Counsel Jennifer Abruzzo said a Feb. 21 decision by the board retroactively prohibits severance agreements hindering workers from filing lawsuits or communicating with the board, unions or the media. The board’s February decision voided a pair of Trump-era rulings holding that a severance agreement only violates federal labor law if an employer engages in “animus and additional coercive or otherwise unlawful conduct” to get a worker to sign it. (REUTERS, INSURANCE JOURNAL)

NV Lawmakers to Weigh Equal Pay for Intellectually Disabled

A bill (AB 259) introduced this month in Nevada would require providers of “jobs and day training services,” starting in 2028, to pay those with intellectual or developmental disabilities no less than the state minimum wage. Nevada’s minimum wage will increase to $12 per hour next year. (LAS VEGAS REVIEW-JOURNAL, STATE NET)

—Compiled by KOREY CLARK