Live from the Horizonte workplace 2025 – from Ada to title VII: Trend problems in adapting the employees

Intro

You will hear a special edition of WE GET WORK®, which was recorded live from the Horizons 2025 workplace in New York City, Jackson Lewis' annual Labor and Employment Law Conference. Over 500 representatives of 260 companies gathered to share valuable knowledge and proven procedures on questions of the workplace that affect their business today. Here is your personal invitation to get the knowledge from the conference directly to you. We'll see you in 2026.

CONTENTS

Alitien Faccone

Senior Director of Business Development

Hello and welcome to WE Work®, live from the Horizonte workplace 2025. This afternoon I have the pleasure of having Jackson Lewis in the Podcast Studio Tania Mistretta, a headmaster at Jackson Lewis, and Michelle Phillips.

I will first ask you to tell our listeners a little about their practice, what they are doing and what customers are asking. Tania?

Headmaster, New York City

Sure, good afternoon. I do a bit of everything – advice and advice, legal disputes and training. A large component of my practice is the space for disabilities that leaves health management. Today it was such a privilege to speak to the group of title VII, AdA and pregnancy labor laws in the group about accommodation problems. These are many of the topics we receive questions To A lot changes from customers and the current climate.

A large part of our presentation today was to talk about what we see on the horizon and how problems with the disability and pregnancy accommodation overlap and play together. I spent a lot of time advising customers in this room, and unfortunately sometimes also punished in this room. It's pretty long and short.

So good, great. Michelle, how about you?

Headmaster, white levels

It was a great compilation with them. Really, I learned a lot. I actually listened to you when you presented, and I thought Wow, I didn't know that. So that was very cool.

In my area, similar to Tania, I do a lot of legal disputes, advice and advice and a lot of training. It is in a variety of problems, but if I subspecialized, I did a lot of work in the DEI room, and that will really change. That has changed a lot. It is not so much that Dei canceled so much that being more careful in the guardrails and being legal and more thoughtful in terms of your efforts.

The title of her presentation was exactly that: “From Ada to title VII, trend problems in and here is the key word that speaks for employees.” I know that Katharine Weber cannot share the stage with us here this afternoon, but what did you cover in your presentation this afternoon?

I took the lead with regard to the law on pregnant workers -Fairness and talked about what we expect from the EEOC, what we have to expect if the administration project 2025 and some of the common problems occur, especially with regard to the question of abortion, religious accommodation and objections.

This is the beauty of coming to such a conference. I have the feeling that I learned so much about Michelle and Katharine because Michelle has to do with titles VII issues so often, and she was like the resident expert on this topic. So I will let Michelle speak To Your experience with it. It was really dealt with what problems with hot flaps we see, what questions occur frequently, what the guardrails are, what we expect on the horizon and navigate the overlap between these types of accommodations.

It will not be surprising when I say that a lot of people spoke this afternoon and yesterday, because we talked to the pioneer here at Jackson Lewis about how much change has taken place. I know that it also appeared in your presentation when you cross all these multidisciplinary legal areas. How do you advise people? What are some of the most important snack bars you can share with the audience and who want to know our podcast listeners?

It is important to compensate for competing interests. In the past, an employer could possibly prefer the rights of a group to a group of the rights of another group depending on where they could fall. When it comes to religious accommodations, they must Take it to the nominal value. You cannot have an opinion of an opinion. Someone may have a religious faith that differs from their own, but in question is not the truthfulness or sincerity that is the standard of religious faith. Take it so that this is your belief and then decide how can I try to take this belief into account as long as Doesn't it cause any significant costs for other people? It could bother other people, but as long as For example, the person is not if you force someone else to convince, you have to try to be more creative and think about this as an employer to take this into account. We will see an increase in claims with religious accommodations. It used to be a de -minimis Groff v. Dejoy In 2023 it would take more for an employer to refuse a religious request. That is probably the biggest.

What would you say about this question, Tania?

The accommodations, regardless of whether it is title VII, the ADA or the pregnant fairness act, are very emotional for humans. What I think is a consistent approach for common sense. If you have an accommodation request from an employee and sit there and ask yourself, I do not understand the basis for it or why this is necessary in contrast to an alternative. The common sense should determine the follow-up conversation here. You will find that some employers strive very much Paper fileAnd everything is back and forth by e -mail. I think that common sense of just making a telephone and speaking to an employee is really the best way to understand what you are looking for, and avoid this deafness, which can sometimes occur via e -mail. In order to have this conversation in real time, it is really the best way to contact the accommodation problems.

Tania, how are Jackson Lewis lawyers, Michelle, Katharine himself, your colleagues, how do you help our employers to deal with these really challenging topics this year?

It is a lot of education, prevention and proactive. The law, especially labor law, continues to develop. Therefore, we try to do our best to ensure that our clients are aware of upcoming changes. Not being reactive, but more so proactive so that we are ahead of the bell curve and let customers know what problems they can expect. If you get this asks You already have the answer to your fingertips from the employees. If something new appears, of course we also like to change it.

Michelle, you and I sat over it Table Many a year now. What you would say is really something special when you are in workplace horizons? How does that help ours Customers Year after year?

I remember that I went to my first horizons in the workplace. It's been so long ago that I don't even remember that I was at least two decades. It was a while ago. I remember that I felt this enormous feeling of awe about all the talent in the room. I couldn't believe that we had an expert In Almost every topic that you may be able to imagine under the sun. I didn't even know that there were so many issues in labor law, let alone that we had the experts.

Just go from this to today, where a large part of my practice is national, so I can support a customer in California, Indiana or Pennsylvania, and I never see them differently than at this conference. It is an enormous opportunity for many of us who have a national practice to connect with customers who are otherwise only on the phone or by e -mail. It's almost like home when we get together at these conferences.

Michelle, Tania, thank you very much for participating today, not only here in the podcast studio, but of course also through your presentation. I look forward to seeing you at the workplace at our next horizons. Enjoy the rest of the conference. Thank you very much.

Outro

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