National State Employment Law Update

Several changes impacting employers in jurisdictions across the nation are summarized below in our latest blog post.

Connecticut

• On February 25, 2026, Connecticut’s Attorney General’s office issued a memorandum clarifying that the state’s anti-discrimination law applies to discrimination resulting from employers’ use of artificial intelligence.

Iowa

• Effective May 10, 2026 – Senate File 579 (S.F. 579) prohibits Iowa cities and local governments from enacting ordinances or other laws that are broader or have different categories of unfair or discriminatory practices than provided under state law.

Kentucky

• Effective April 10, 2026 – House Bill 185 (H.B. 185) amends Kentucky’s definition of tipped employees to require that they perform work that:
  • directly supports or is itself the service for which a customer would tip; or
  • directly supports a service that involves customer interaction or is performed in the customers’ line of sight.
  • The legislation also requires that tip pool arrangements must exclude salaried employees, managers, or supervisors. This law took effect on April 10, 2026.
• – House Bill 521 (H.B. 521) makes it a second-degree criminal trespass for an individual to enter or remain in a workplace and engage in “threatening behavior” after receiving verbal or written no-trespass notice. The legislation defines “threatening behavior” as behavior intentionally engaged by an individual that puts another person in reasonable apprehension of imminent physical injury.

Maryland

• Effective October 1, 2026 – Captive Audience Speech Law – Senate Bill 417 (S.B. 417) prohibits retaliation against employees for declining to attend or participate in employer-sponsored meetings where the employer communicates its opinion about religious or political matters, including the decision to join or support a labor organization. The legislation also prohibits retaliation against applicants for refusing to attend or participate in those meetings.

Maine

• Effective July 15, 2026 – Legislative Document 2110 (L.D. 2110) makes significant changes to Maine’s workplace drug testing laws.

• Effective July 29, 2026 – Pay Transparency Law – House Paper 18 (H.P. 18) requires employers with 10 or more employees to include in job postings a statement of the prospective range of pay that will be offered to a successful applicant. The statement is required unless the position is compensated solely on the basis of commission, in which case the posting must state that the compensation is based solely on commission. Additionally, upon request of an employee, the law also requires employers to disclose the range of pay the employer offers for the position the employee holds.

Tennessee

• Effective April 23, 2026 – Senate Bill 579 (S.B. 579) requires employers to provide eligible employees with up to 12 weeks of leave to recover from surgery related to a living organ donation. Employees must be eligible for leave under the federal Family and Medical Leave Act in order to be eligible for the leave provided under S.B. 579.

Nebraska

• On April 14, 2026, Nebraska’s governor approved Legislative Bill 921 (L.B. 921) which goes into effect on July 18, 2026. B. 921 imposes several significant requirements on Nebraska employers, as follows:

• New protections for non-English speaking workers: if more than five percent of an employer’s workforce are non-English-speaking employees who speak the same non-English language, the employer must take additional actions, including making an interpreter available at the worksite for each shift during which a non-English-speaking employee is employed.

• Nebraska WARN: L.B. 921 creates the Nebraska Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification (WARN) law, which has different requirements than the federal WARN Act. Specifically, Nebraska employers with 100 or more full-time employees must provide employees with 90 days’ advance written notice to affected employees (or their bargaining representative) and the Nebraska Department of Labor before implementing a “mass layoff” or “business closing.”

• Effective July 18, 2026 – Legislative Bill 847 (L.B. 847):
  • Enacts the Nebraska Registered Apprenticeship Act, which establishes the Office of Registered Apprenticeship to serve as the state’s apprenticeship and registration agency, establishes apprenticeship standards and registration requirements for apprenticeship programs, and resolves disputes between parties to an apprenticeship agreement.
  • Specifies that employers must keep a minor’s employment certificate for 12 months after the minor terminates employment or reaches age 16. They are no longer required to transmit the certificate to the person who approved it, upon terminating the minor’s employment.
  • Establishes an annual administrative and operational support fee for experience-rated employers under Nebraska’s unemployment insurance law.
  • Eliminates the infraction and fine penalties for employers that fail to provide a wage statement, but authorizes the state Labor Department to issue a citation under the state’s Wage Payment and Collection Act when they fail to provide the statement.
  • Transfers the administration of student internships from the state Department of Economic Development to the state Labor Department.

Oklahoma

• Effective November 1, 2026 – House Bill 3127 (H.B. 3127) allows employers to refuse to hire, discipline or discharge applicants or employees for a cannabis-positive drug test result if such action is taken pursuant to a written drug testing policy adopted and enforced in compliance with Oklahoma’s Standards for Workplace Drug and Alcohol Testing Act. The legislation also amends the definition of “safety-sensitive position” to explicitly include certain job duties, and requires such positions to have a zero-tolerance drug and alcohol standard, regardless of any employer policy that uses impairment-based testing or a more lenient standard for non-safety-sensitive positions.

Oregon

• Effective June 5, 2026 – House Bill 4111 (H.B. 4111) prohibits employers from taking any adverse employment action against employees who update or attempt to update their personal information based on a lawful change in the employee’s federal employment authorization documentation.

Utah

• Effective June 6, 2026 – House Bill 250 (H.B. 250) creates the Utah retirement savings program and establishes a retirement plan exchange for private employers. The program will be open to private employers with one or more employees. The law directs the state treasurer’s office to establish and maintain a publicly accessible online exchange through which an eligible private employer may review, compare, and select one or more retirement plans. The law requires that the exchange platform be established by November 2, 2026, and begin operation no later than January 1, 2027. 

Virginia

• Effective July 1, 2026 – Pay Transparency Law – Senate Bill 215 (S.B. 215) requires employers to disclose the wage, salary, or wage or salary range in all internal or public job postings (or other employment opportunities). The legislation also prohibits employers from asking for or seeking the wage or salary history of an applicant or relying on the wage or salary history of an applicant in making hiring decisions, and prohibits employers from refusing to interview, hire, employ, or promote or otherwise retaliate against applicants or current employees for refusing to provide wage or salary history information.
• Effective July 1, 2026 – Senate Bill 170 (S.B. 170) makes a covenant not to compete unenforceable between an employer and an employee if the employer discharges the employee without providing severance benefits or other monetary payment that is disclosed when the covenant was executed. The law applies to noncompete agreements executed, amended or renewed on or after July 1, 2026, and does not apply if the employee is discharged for cause.
• Effective July 1, 2026 – Senate Bill 100 (S.B. 100) prohibits employers from retaliating against employees for failing to report for work due to serving as a voluntary emergency responder in response to an emergency alarm or during a state of emergency, if certain requirements are met. Employers are not required to pay employees for missed work time due to the emergency responder service, but employees can substitute accrued vacation or sick leave if the time off is unpaid by the employer.
• Effective July 1, 2026 – House Bill 238 (H.B. 238) establishes and imposes a uniform penalty for employer violations of Virginia’s minimum wage, overtime, worker misclassification, wage payment, or prevailing wage laws. The legislation establishes that employers who violate any of these laws are liable for all unpaid wages, an equal amount as liquidated damages, 8% annual interest on the amount owed, and reasonable attorneys’ fees. Employers found to have knowingly violated the law are liable for three times the wages owed, are guilty of a misdemeanor if the unpaid wages are less than $10,000, and are guilty of a felony if the unpaid wages are $10,000 or more.

• Effective July 1, 2026 – House Bill 176 (H.B. 176) amends Virginia’s retirement savings program. Effective July 1, 2026, employers with 5 or more employees are subject to the program. The legislation also amends the definition of “Eligible employee” to remove the requirement that an eligible employee work at least 30 hours per week.

West Virginia 

• Effective July 1, 2026 – Senate Bill 1053 (S.B. 1053) requires employers subject to the state’s unemployment insurance law to pay an administrative fee of 7% on their unemployment-taxable wages paid during the 12-month period ending June 30 each year. Each employer liable for the fee shall be notified of the amount due by March 31^st of each year which must be paid within 30 days. 

Washington

• Effective June 11, 2026 – House Bill 2105 (H.B. 2105) requires employers to notify employees if the results of an I-9 inspection find deficiencies. Employers must give employees, and their authorized representatives, a description of any deficiencies or other items identified in the written immigration inspection results related to the affected worker; the time period for correcting any potential deficiencies; a mutually agreed upon time and date, or options for times and dates, within the allotted correction period, for a meeting with the employer to correct any identified deficiencies; and notice that the worker has the right to representation during any meeting scheduled with the employer.
• Effective June 11, 2026 – House Bill 2471 (H.B. 2471) enacts a collective bargaining law that would apply when federal law partly or totally ceases to preempt the regulation of private-sector labor-management relations in the state. In those situations, state law would apply, and not federal law, and allows Washington’s Public Employment Relations Commission (“PERC”) to prevent and remedy violations of state law. State law would also apply when the National Labor Relations Board determines that it lacks jurisdiction, declines to exercise its jurisdiction, or is deprived of jurisdiction over a particular employer, group of employees, trade, or industry.
• Effective June 30, 2027 – Noncompete Ban – House Bill 1155 (H.B. 1155) prohibits and bans the use of noncompete covenants/agreements in employment. The law allows for the use of non-solicitation and confidentiality agreements under certain circumstances and limited agreements for repayment of educational expenses.  By October 1, 2027, employers must make reasonable efforts to notify current and former employees and independent contractors whose noncompetition covenant is still within its effective time period, that the covenant is void and unenforceable.