Nearly 80 years after Congress passed the Portal-to-Portal Act, when the workday begins and ends remains a common legal fight. The statute was supposed to settle a relatively narrow question, whether time spent getting to and from work counts as compensable work, but in practice it set up a multi-decade debate about preliminary, postliminary, and “integral and indispensable” activities that continues to generate seven and eight figure exposure for employers. 

The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), the federal agency that enforces the principal federal laws prohibiting workplace discrimination, reported $660 million in total monetary relief for 17,680 workers, the third-highest annual recovery in recent years.  The $660 million top line figure is based on $528 million recovered from roughly 13,350 pre-litigation settlements, $104.6 million from over 1,800 federal employee settlements, and $27 million from over 2,500 cases resolved in litigation. 

Since 2020, Washington has protected workers’ desire to hold down a 2nd job or take on additional work through RCW 49.62.070 commonly referred to as the “moonlighting law”. The statute provides protections for lower paid workers who want to take a second job, work as an independent contractor, or be self employed alongside their employment. However, courts still recognized the common law “duty of loyalty,” which generally allowed employers to impose reasonable restrictions on employees to ensure they do not act in ways that would affirmatively detract from the employer’s business. Indeed, the moonlighting law even provides that “ The question thus arose: how should courts interpret this duty of loyalty in light of the moonlighting law?  

On June 9, 2026, two federal appeals courts issued decisions in favor of employees in workers’ wage cases. One case began in a line outside an Illinois warehouse, where employees allegedly waited on-premises through mandatory COVID-19 health screenings before they were allowed to clock in, and a court said that time was not paid time. The other reached the appeals court after a California trial court told a former delivery driver that her wage lawsuit must be arbitrated, and could not stay in court. Both cases represent important victories for workers.  

If you work at a large retail chain, restaurant, hotel, or food service company in Oregon, your employer is required to provide  you with your schedule 14 days in advance — and pay you extra when they change it on short notice. You are also entitled to  a 10-hour rest period between shifts, and you cannot legally be punished for declining to work hours added at the last minute. 

These protections arise from the Oregon Fair Work Week Act (“Fair Work Week Act”), the first statewide fair workweek law in the United States. It has been effective since 2018. If you have ever been called in at the last minute, lost hours without warning, been scheduled to close one night and open the next morning, or written up for refusing a shift, the law may offer you some recourse.

On May 28, 2026, the Supreme Court issued a unanimous decision in Flowers Foods, Inc. v. Brock substantially expanding  which types of workers can avoid forced arbitration and bring their employment claims in court. 

If you drive for a delivery service, if you load trucks at a distribution center, if you pick up goods at a regional warehouse and deliver them to local stores, or if you signed a distribution agreement that includes an arbitration clause, the ruling may directly affect your ability to sue for unpaid wages, misclassification as an independent contractor, expense reimbursement, or other workplace claims.

These are recent developments across the United States for no poach agreement antitrust enforcement, for January to March 2026.

Schneider Wallace Cottrell Kim LLP, a national plaintiffs’ law firm founded in 1993, is pleased to announce that David D. Burnett has been promoted to Partner. David leads the firm’s D.C. office and joins a growing partner tier at the firm.

On Monday March 23rd 2026, Governor Bob Ferguson signed House Bill 1155 into law, banning nearly all employment noncompetition agreements for Washington workers. The law becomes effective June 30th 2027 and includes both employees and independent contractors.

Washington law gives most workers the right to rest breaks, meal periods, and paid sick leave. These rules are not optional. When an employer does not provide required break time, or does not pay when break time must be paid, the issue can become a wage-and-hour violation. Washington also protects workers from retaliation for using paid sick leave and asserting their rights.