Maine Employment Lawyer Blog

Rep. David Burns, R-Whiting, has reportedly sponsored a bill that would allow employers to pay teenagers $2.25 less per hour than they have to pay workers who are 20 years old and older. The bill would reduce the minimum wage for teenagers from $7.50 per hour to $5.25 per hour. Under this proposed legislation, L.D. 1346, an employer could pay this reduced wage for the first 180 days of the teenage employee's employment.

Under this new law, employers will have an incentive to hire teenagers instead of older workers. For instance, if an inn needs a housekeeper for the busy summer season, it can hire a teenager for $5.25 per hour or someone older than 19 for $7.50 per hour. Who do you think it is going to hire? That's right, the teenager. If this bill becomes law, unemployed Mainers who need work to support their families will likely have an even more difficult time finding jobs. After all, there is no evidence that a shortage of unskilled labor exists in Maine.

Another Republican lawmaker, Debra Plowman, is sponsoring legislation that would allow teenagers to work longer hours. The proponents of Plowman's bill touted it as a way to help teenagers save for college. This new bill would obviously cut against this purported goal. The money that teenagers would earn working additional hours under Plowman's bill would be reduced by the lower hourly wage they would receive under Burns' bill. Moreover, as discussed in an earlier post on this blog, as teenagers work longer hours they experience a higher risk of bad grades and behavior problems, such as drug use.

If you have an opinion about these proposed changes to Maine's child labor laws, you should contact your representatives in the legislature.

On March 24, 2011, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) finalized new regulations for the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). Congress revamped the ADA in 2008. The president signed the revamped version into law in January 2009. The EEOC's new regulations provide guidance to employers, employees, and courts on how to interpret certain portions of the new ADA.

Before Congress revamped the ADA, employers had successfully convinced the courts to interpret the ADA in a very restrictive way. Under this restrictive interpretation of the ADA, employers could discriminate against employees because they had conditions like cancer, multiple sclerosis, and bipolar disorder. The courts allowed these employers to discriminate against employees suffering from conditions like these under the rationale that these conditions were not disabilities under the ADA. For instance, courts held that some people with bipolar disorder did not have a disability because medication controlled their symptoms. Accordingly, courts permitted employers to fire someone merely because he had bipolar disorder that was controlled by medication.

Under the revamped ADA and the new regulations, people who seem to intuitively fit the definition of a person with a disability will now receive protection from discrimination that they did not enjoy under the old ADA. For instance, under the new regulations, there is a list of conditions like cancer, multiple sclerosis, and bipolar disorder which should "easily" meet the new definition of disability.

The Maine Human Rights Act (MHRA) also prohibits discrimination against employees with disabilities. The MHRA is similar to the ADA in some respects but also different in some respects. If an employer has discriminated against you because of a health condition, you should contact an experienced employment lawyer to learn about your rights under both the ADA and MHRA.

Currently, it is legal for an employer to refuse to hire anyone who is unemployed. Obviously, if this practice becomes widespread, the current high unemployment rate would remain high for much longer. A Congressman from Georgia believes this is unfair and he has proposed legislation to make it illegal. Under the Congressman's bill, The Fair Employment Act of 2011 (H.R. 1113), the same federal law that protects job applicants from religious discrimination, race discrimination, and sex discrimination would also protect applicants from discrimination on the basis of their employment status.

This bill comes on the heels of claims that discrimination against the jobless is a covert way of discriminating against the aged and racial minorities. Older workers and racial minorities were particularly hard hit during the recession. Thus, if an employer refuses to hire an unemployed applicant, it is more likely that it will not hire an older worker or a racial minority.

Under current Maine law, with some exceptions, employers may not work minors aged 16-18 more than 20 hours per week while school is in session. The Maine legislature is considering a bill that would allow employers to work minors aged 16-18 32 hours per week while school is in session. The bill would also change existing law and permit employers to work minors aged 16-18 until 11:00 pm on school nights.

Proponents of the bill argue that teens could use the extra income to save for college. However, critics of the law cite a study which says that teens who work more than 20 hours per week during the school year are at higher risk for bad grades and behavior problems, such as drug use and delinquency. There are certainly pros and cons to this bill. Whether it will result in a net benefit to Mainers is uncertain.