Here are some other quick developments we will be happy to expand upon for any interested readers:

• A unionized employer’s decision to interpret its no-smoking policy to cover e-cigarettes may trigger a duty to bargain with a union.
• Philadelphia has boosted the minimum wage for city contractors to $12 per hour, effective January 1, 2015.
• FLSA claims are at their highest level ever in the US, up 107 percent in the past 10 years, and up 10 percent in the last year.
• A federal judge in New York has conditionally certified a collective action under the FLSA for some 3,000 unpaid interns who claimed that Warner Music Group Corp. improperly classified them as exempt from minimum wage and overtime pay (are your company’s interns being paid properly?).
• An employer may bring theft charges against a plaintiff’s law firm that orchestrates the theft of a company’s data in order to build a legal claim.
• Firing a male employee for seeking family leave to attend an unexpected appointment for his pregnant wife may constitute retaliation in violation of the Family and Medical Leave Act.
• The EEOC has settled a sexual harassment case in Oregon against a supermarket chain for $487,500, in which the individual harasser was a customer who repeatedly made lewd remarks and groped females. The company reportedly failed to respond effectively to end or prevent the harassment by the customer.

Michael Homans is a Labor & Employment attorney and founding partner of HomansPeck LLC. For more employment law updates, including news and links to important information pertaining to legal developments that may affect your business, subscribe to Michael’s blog, or follow him on Twitter @EmployLawUpdate.