Take It or Leave It

On this episode of the Take It or Leave It Podcast, Seyfarth attorneys Josh Seidman and Debbie Caplan discuss the new Pregnant Workers Fairness Act (PWFA) and its implications on employers and employees alike. Join them as they highlight details about this new accommodation mandate for pregnant individuals, how it overlaps with and differs from the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) and Pregnan...

When Take It or Leave It first launched in 2021, our first topic was religious accommodations for the Covid vaccine. The Supreme Court's decision in Groff v. DeJoy has brought religious accommodations back into the forefront and so, once again, host Joshua Seidman sits down with expert Dawn Solowey to discuss what Groff means for employers in the workplace religious accommodations space. Together,...

Paid leave laws continue to evolve and expand in states and localities across the country. The country’s many paid leave patchworks continue to blossom, including in the spaces of mandatory and voluntary paid family leave, paid sick leave, paid “any reason” leave and many others. As in prior years, 2023 has continued a recent legislative trend where numerous paid leave bills are introduced, a numb...

In honor of Memorial Day and Military Appreciation Month, this Take It or Leave It episode discusses the Uniformed Services Employment and Reemployment Rights Act of 1994 (USERRA) and nuances and recent developments in the military leave space with guest speaker Brad Kelley, Chief Counsel to U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) Commissioner Keith E. Sonderling.

In a bittersweet 20th episode, we wish a fond farewell to cohost Meg Toth as she moves on from Seyfarth. We celebrate her part in getting Take It Or Leave It off the ground, revisit some of her favorite moments from the podcast, and get her predictions on upcoming paid leave hotspots. Take It or Leave It podcast will keep running, but please join Josh Seidman as we look ahead to what’s coming in p...

Bereavement leave isn’t talked about as much as certain other types of paid leave, but it is equally important and gaining traction in several states. Bereavement leave laws have recently expanded in certain jurisdictions, offering time for employees to grieve losses and navigate personally tumultuous periods. Join cohosts Josh Seidman and Meg Toth as they examine the rise in bereavement leave law...

Illinois is about to become one of three states with a mandatory paid leave law, requiring employers to provide employees with paid leave that can be used for any reason -- joining the nationwide mosaic of leave laws and creating potential headaches for employers. One of Seyfarth’s resident paid leave experts Gillian Lepore joins hosts Joshua Seidman and Meg Toth to examine the details of the new...

In this episode of “Take It or Leave It,” co-hosts Josh Seidman and Meg Toth are joined by special guest and FMLA-expert, Ellen McLaughlin to celebrate the 30th anniversary of the Family Medical Leave Act (FMLA). The discussion examines the continuing impact of the FMLA and its nuances that employers are still grappling with. Highlights of the episode include how the law benefits employees and emp...

With the New Year upon us comes a bevy of new leave laws and trends on the horizon, and the opportunity to reflect on all the happenings of 2022. Throughout 2022, we covered developments across the leave space and now it’s time to tie it all together. During this final 2022 episode of “Take It or Leave It,” Meg Toth and Josh Seidman are joined by their Seyfarth Labor & Employment colleague, Renate...

With 2022 drawing to a rapid close, it is important to remember that California laws are unique and ever-changing, especially in the leave of absence management and accommodation world. Staying on trend, we saw many changes in California leave laws in 2022 and will likely see more in 2023. During this episode of “Take It or Leave It,” Meg Toth and Josh Seidman are joined by their California Seyfar...

With midterm elections in full force and voting to begin this week, it is important for employers to understand state and local voting leave laws that require time off to vote, including how much time must be provided, when the time must be provided, whether it must be paid, any notice and documentation requirements and possible approaches for nationwide compliance. During this episode of “Take It...

Managing employee leaves of absence carries a plethora of legal and practical challenges, especially in light of the many types of paid and unpaid leave laws scattered around the country. Mix in the fact that each set of laws -- the FMLA (federal), the ADA (federal), paid family leave, unpaid family leave, statutory disability insurance, bereavement leave, family military leave, safe time, pregnan...

During this episode of “Take It or Leave It,” co-hosts Josh Seidman and Meg Toth discuss important legal considerations and trends that they have been addressing first-hand with clients developing or revamping their parental leave policies. Specific topics include: important provisions that should be addressed in a parental leave policy or the “anatomy” of a parental leave policy, coordination of...

An employee’s visa status is not usually top of mind for employers when managing leaves of absence and accommodations, but for many important reasons, it should not be overlooked, as it may pose some significant risks both for the employee and the employer if not handled correctly. During this episode of “Take It or Leave It,” co-hosts Josh Seidman and Meg Toth are joined by their colleague and ex...

Understanding leaves of absence and accommodations in the United States generally begins with the federal Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) and Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). While both laws have been around since the early-1990s, their many nuances and moving parts, as well as novel external factors such as COVID-19, continue to require careful navigation by even the most seasoned attor...

With the patchwork of paid leave laws that have been cropping up across the country for many years now, including paid family leave, paid sick leave, paid COVID-19 leave and many others, it is easy for employers to lose sight of or completely miss the introduction and passing of new bills, and even the enactment of new paid leave laws. During this episode of “Take It or Leave It,” co-hosts Josh Se...

Employers have now been dealing with the realities and impact of COVID-19 for two years. A major part of that reality for many companies has been and continues to be tracking, navigating, and complying with the nation’s ever-changing COVID-19 paid leave landscape. During this episode of “Take It or Leave It,” co-hosts Josh Seidman and Meg Toth are joined by their colleague and expert guest, Elizab...

When employers think about how to handle their employees’ earned, unused paid time off some traditional options come to mind. They include forfeiture (i.e., use it or lose it), carryover (i.e., roll it into the next year), cash out, or some combination thereof. As employers continue to adjust to new workplace realities created by COVID-19, greater attention is being placed on employers’ paid time...

During the last episode of “Take It or Leave It” we discussed the concept of “Unlimited” paid time off (PTO) for employees at an international level. For this episode, we are back for the second part of this two-part mini-series to explore “unlimited” PTO policies for U.S. employees. Co-hosts Josh Seidman and Meg Toth are joined by their colleague and expert employment counselor and advisor, Chels...

“Unlimited” paid time off (PTO) policies are contemplated by many U.S. employers as a way of providing a generous leave benefit to certain groups of employees, while also simplifying leave administration related to those employees. There are pros and cons to such policies at a domestic level, especially when state and local leave mandates enter the equation. But how do “unlimited” PTO policies far...

Over the last two years, in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, the way people work has changed drastically and the number of employers permanently adopting remote and/or hybrid work policies is continuing to grow. Many forward-thinking employers who have adopted or considered remote or hybrid work policies are encountering a host of new, complex issues related to leaves and accommodations and grap...

The country’s patchwork of state and local paid leave laws continues to evolve and impose perplexing and burdensome compliance obligations on even the most well-intentioned employers. A federal paid leave mandate affecting private employers, and with it a possible reprieve from the patchwork, has eluded lawmakers in Congress for years. The Build Back Better Act (“BBBA”) is the latest Congressional...

Prior to exemption requests for the COVID-19 vaccine, most employers were familiar with and regularly handled medical accommodation requests under the ADA. However, even for experienced employers, employee requests to be exempt from the COVID-19 vaccine for medical or disability-related reasons, particularly in the face of company vaccine mandates, have presented some significant and novel issues....

The increasing number of employers implementing COVID-19 vaccine mandates in the workplace has led to a significant influx of religious accommodation requests from employees asking to be exempt from receiving the COVID-19 vaccine. This high volume of religious accommodation requests and novel legal issues being presented by such requests have left many employers scrambling to process and address t...

Take It or Leave It is the only law firm podcast focused exclusively on workplace leaves, absence management, and accommodations. Hosts Meg Toth and Josh Seidman, Employment attorneys and co-leaders of Seyfarth’s Leaves of Absence Management and Accommodations team, explore the latest legal developments, forecast new laws, identify workplace trends, and offer practical, business-oriented considera...