 Good evening tonight's presentation is part of the People's Law School, a partnership of the Vermont Attorney General's Office, the Association of Africans Living in Vermont, the Vermont Racial Justice Alliance, the Vermont Institute for Community and International Involvement, the Carolyn Fund, and with support from the ACLU of Vermont. So tonight's presentation is entitled Employment Law 101. My name is Emily Adams, I'm an assistant attorney general in the civil rights division of the Vermont Attorney General's Office. Part of my role here at the office is working with our offices employment discrimination investigations, something we'll talk about a little bit later in the program. Joining me this evening also from the Vermont Attorney General's Office is Joshua Diamond, Deputy Attorney General. I also have Dirk Anderson, who is general counsel for the Vermont Department of Labor. Kelly Kaczmarski, who was an attorney with Vermont legal aid out of the St. Johnsbury office. Beth Dannen, a partner at Conrath Law in Heinsberg, Vermont, and Aaron Gallivan, a partner at Larson and Gallivan in Rutland, Vermont. We have a jam packed session tonight in which we'll be taking talking about all aspects of the employer and employee relationship. We'll talk about employment discrimination, leave laws, wage an hour and unemployment issues, worker safety and workers compensation. Because we have so many topics to cover tonight, we do expect to use the full 90 minutes. But we will answer any questions that may come up as time allows. We do ask that if as a participant if you have a question. Our preference is to for you to use the chat box you should be able to find that at the bottom of your screen there's a Q&A box. We'll likely take some time at the end of each segment to answer questions relevant to that segment. Some folks have generously offered to stay after if needed to answer additional questions. And so we can do that as well as appropriate. All right, so first, oh and just a reminder this presentation tonight is being recorded. And so it will also be rebroadcast on CCTV later on. So first I'm going to turn it over to Josh Diamond for the beginning of our program. Good evening everyone thanks for coming to the People's Law School and this session on employment law 101. This is really one of my favorite legal topics before coming to the Attorney General's office. I was in private practice working in the field of employment law. And when I would start off when I would meet a prospective client. This is really about the at will doctrine and it's a little bit of good news and bad news. So let me start off with the bad news. Vermont is an at will state. And what at will means, in essence, is that an employer can discharge an employee at any time with or without cause. There's really nothing that can be done. Now that's a bit of an overstatement. And the flip side of this is that an employee is free to leave the employment relationship without consequence at any time. The at will doctrine I believe is disfavored because it can lead to unfair and unjust results. And as a result, there are a lot of exceptions to this presumption in the law, if you will, and we're going to talk about a number of them tonight. The first exception to the at will doctrine is whether an employee has a contract that basically says you cannot be discharged unless there is just cause. Just cause as the courts have stated is some substantial shortcoming detrimental to the employer's interests, which law and sound public opinion recognized as good as a good cause for dismissal. Whether the employer acted reasonably because of that next conduct. Now, that's a lot of legal ease and you can distill that really down to two concepts. Did the employer act reasonably in discharging the employee. And did that employee have fair notice, whether expressly or implied that their conduct would lead to a discharge. Now the most common place that folks can find these types of contracts with a just cause clause are collective bargaining agreements. So if you work for a union, or you have are a member of a union and there's a union contract. It's likely that you're going to find a just cause clause within that contract. I may be saying, well, I don't belong to a union, but I really like to so how do I go about doing that. And the way to do that is through working with other employees under the National Labor Relations Act, and that activity is protected under the law so if you want to gather with your fellow employees, create a union. It's protected in that activity. And if an employer engages in activity to interfere or restrain or course you in your efforts to organize and to organize a union that would violate federal law and amount to what's called an unfair labor practice. Another way that the at will relationship can be modified is implied agreements such as an employee handbook so many of you out there may have access to an employee handbook and if there are things such as a graduated disciplinary process. For example, if you have a provision in your employee handbook that says well if you do something wrong first step you'll get an oral warning. That may be a written warning, then maybe a suspension and then finally termination that may modify the at will relationship because there's a reasonable expectation that you have that your employer will follow those processes. And if the employer fails to do that. Then you may have a cause of action if you are discharged without the benefit of that process. Now that's not a hard and fast rule, because often employers will have disclaimers within that language, and you'll have to look on a case by case basis what is the actual language in that handbook. As well as what is the practice of the employer as well do they reasonably rely on that do they apply that graduated disciplinary process or do they kind of reserve the right to do it when they want to, or not. And so you'll have to look at each case separately to determine whether that implied modification as it occurred by virtue of that handbook. So this is at will in a nutshell, and how you can get around that but there are other areas as well, such as civil rights statutes that exist and I know some of the other speakers here tonight, we'll talk about those exceptions, as well. Thank you. Any questions, doesn't look like when we have any questions on that section. Thank you Josh. If folks do have questions we can address them later on as well. I'm going to turn to Beth Danon, who will be talking about workplace discrimination. Beth, I'm going to be sharing your PowerPoint so bear with me. Thank you. Can folks see that okay. I can see it. Beth just let me know when you'd like me to move on to the next slide. Okay, great, perfect. As Emily said, I'm Beth Danon and I practice law in Heinsberg, Vermont, which isn't too far from Burlington. And I've been practicing law in Vermont for about 32 years. And I practice in the area of employment law workers compensation personal injury like car crashes. And that's pretty much the bulk of what I do. And as Josh said, there's some exceptions to employment at will. Meaning, when can you have a claim against your employer for treating you in a way that is illegal under federal law and or state law. So I'm going to talk about discrimination and employment. The reason why we have this law is that it violates public policy for an employer to discriminate against people if they're in a protected category, which will go over. Next slide in Emily. So the federal law prohibits employment discrimination based on race, color, national origin, religion, sex, and under sex the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission has said that gender identity and sexual orientation are two protected categories that fall under sex discrimination. Under federal law you can't discriminate based on pregnancy, physical or mental disabilities or age. Next. So when does the federal law apply. So whether or not the federal law apply depends on how big your employer is. There's different discrimination laws under federal law. It's usually your employer usually has to have 15 or 20 employees and its workforce for the federal law to apply. For an example under the Americans with Disabilities Act, the employer must have 15 or more employees. But that's not a problem because under Vermont law. It's very similar to the federal laws but the difference is it applies to all Vermont employers regardless of size so it even would apply to someone who had one employee. Next. So Vermont has a few more protected categories with regard to employment discrimination so the top ones are the same as the federal law, race, color, national origin, religion, sex, gender identity, pregnancy, sexual orientation, physical or mental disabilities, age, and then Vermont has a few more and that's the italicized ones, crime victim status, genetic information, place of birth, ancestry or HIV status. So what does that mean when an employer can't discriminate against applicants or employees. That means they can't discriminate in their job advertisements. So for instance you might, it might be discriminatory if someone says only females need apply. Now there might be some exceptions to that but that would be on its face discriminatory. They can't discriminate and how they take or what forms they use for applications and hiring. For example, I've seen applications that say do you have a disability. Well, they cannot ask that that is illegal. They can't discriminate in their hiring practice. So for instance, let's say you have a man who's less qualified than a woman for the job, and they hire the man that might be an indication of discrimination based on sex. They can't discriminate with regard to job assignments or promotions. This one I get a lot as a lawyer. Many times you'll have longtime employees who are female or people of color, and people who are junior to them who are less experienced, but are white and male, they get the promotion. So that comes up quite a bit. You can't discriminate based on pay and benefits. Lots of times employees find out, boy, I've been here longer in this job and I'm getting paid less than this man who works the same job as me and who is just tired. So that might be a problem. And interestingly enough, under labor laws, you should know that it's totally legal to discuss pay with other employees and benefits and just working conditions in general. If your employer says you're not allowed to talk about those things, that is not true. So just remember that. You can't discriminate in how you discipline and discharge employees. This one I see a lot too. Sometimes people who are of one national origin are being disciplined for coming in late when other employees who may be white are not being disciplined. That's an example of discrimination in the white workplace. Can't discriminate in terms of employment references. So sometimes a person of color wants a reference and they say, oh, we don't provide references, but a white employee might be able to get the reference. And that too is an indication of possible discrimination. And the other thing that an employer can't do is they can't tolerate a hostile work environment. So if employees are making fun of one employee because they wear a Yamaha, for example, to work because that's part of their religious belief and they get made fun of all the time, that would be discrimination in the workplace, potentially. Next slide, Emily. So there are two kinds of discrimination. One is disparate treatment and one is disparate impact. The examples that I gave of treating one employee different than another employee. And the employee who's getting treated differently and maybe more harshly in terms of discipline because they're a religion or their color or their sex, that's considered disparate treatment. So you're singling out a particular employee who's in a protected category and you're treating them differently because of the protected category they're in. Then there's disparate impact. So what that means is on its face, it looks neutral, doesn't look like it's meant to discriminate, but as applied, it does discriminate. So a good example of that is a municipality put out an ad for firefighters and they put in the ad that you had to be or in the application, you had to be, I think, five, seven or four taller. That would disparately impact women applying for that job. And if there isn't a good basis for that particular requirement for the job, if the employer can't make out a good faith basis why that's important in the job, then that's going to have disparate impact. So there isn't intent necessarily to discriminate, but the way that particular job requirement is applied would have a discriminatory impact on a protected group of employees. In the case of the firefighters, it would be women who can't meet that standard. Next one Emily. The other thing is employers are responsible for maintaining a workplace free of sexual harassment. Now what is sexual harassment? So it's a form of sex discrimination and it really means unwelcome sexual advances, requests for sexual favors, or offensive comments about a person's sex, how they look, their body parts, things like that. A lot of sexual joking in the workplace, if it makes women feel uncomfortable, I shouldn't just say women, sometimes it makes men uncomfortable. That could rise to the level of sexual harassment. Next slide. So some aspects of what will constitute sexual harassment is that one submission to that conduct is made either explicit or implicit in the term of poor condition of employment. So if your boss keeps rubbing up against you and giving you massages on your neck, making comments about your body, and they're kind of implying as long as you put up with it, then you're going to be treated very nicely by that boss. That would be sexual harassment. Two, sexual harassment is submission to a rejection of such conduct by an individual if that's used as a basis for employment decisions. So if one employee is very bothered by that conduct, but another employee seems to be probably not by choice, but feeling coerced doesn't object to it and the employee who does, who gets disciplined or fired, that would be discrimination based on sex and the conduct would be sexual harassment. The other aspect of sexual harassment, I mentioned it before, if the conduct has the purpose or effect of substantially interfering with an individual's work performance, or creating an intimidating hostile or offensive work environment. What that means is what the courts are going to look at is the conduct so bad that it interferes with your ability to do your job basically, or just makes it a really offensive and hostile work environment to come into every day. I know I have represented women who work in law enforcement, and this was in perhaps the early 90s, but the work environment for these women at these particular police departments was very hostile, or making sexual jokes all the time, hanging up photographs of, you know, playboy photographs from magazines. Everything was very sexualized. That made it very difficult for these women to do their job. So that would be considered a hostile or offensive work environment. Next slide, Emily. There are two forms of sexual harassment. One is what's called quid pro quo, which is Latin for this, for that. Meaning, if you do me a sexual favor, I will give, I will promote you. I will hire you. I'll get you some, you know, maybe you never got a vacation pay. I represent a woman now who was involved in a quid pro quo situation with her boss, and he wanted sexual favors in exchange for medical benefits and dental benefits more time off. So he was basically saying, if you do these nice things for me, I will do these nice things for you. Oh, and by the way, if you don't do them, I'm going to make your life miserable. So that's the quid pro quo kinds of sexual harassment. The other kind of sexual harassment is what I mentioned already, the hostile work environment. And that has to be severe and pervasive. So some of the conduct I was talking about before where the workplace is very sexualized. There's a lot of joking around based on sex, women's bodies, hanging up offensive art. That could create enough of a hostile work environment that that would constitute sex harassment. So one thing I point out in this note is you do not need to be the victim of the harassment in order to claim a hostile work environment. So maybe you're just sitting at the desk next to the woman who's being constantly harassed and it's starting to interfere with your ability to do your job, or you just don't think it's right. You report it. You can be considered a victim of that. I'm sorry, you can be considered as having been subjected to sexual harassment, even if you aren't the person that's being targeted. If the harassment is go back one. Oh, yeah, there you go. If the harassment is is committed by a supervisor or manager. Then normally the employer will be held responsible for that that hostile work environment, because it knew about it didn't do anything about it, or even if it did, they didn't know about it the fact that it was a supervisor they're going to be held accountable. If it's a co worker, then the employee who's feeling harassed needs to report it and give the employer an opportunity to correct it. Next slide. That's where I talk about the co worker. And then under here. If you read this it says the employer can only escape liability under a hostile work environment. When it's a co worker if it has taken reasonable steps to prevent the harassment has promptly and appropriately address claims of harassment. Or the victim unreasonably fails to use the employer's grievance for complaint process so that's something that's important to remember that if it's co worker. You really have to give the employer the opportunity to correct the problem by filing a grievance or a claim with the employer. And sometimes a lot of employers have human resource departments you can go to and make the complaint. That's really important. Now, the other thing is all employers are supposed to have in their place of work, a sheet that describes sexual harassment and how a complaint can be made in lots of times employers have it in their employee manual. Who they can go to if they feel they're being sexually harassed. But the notice that's supposed to be in the workplace. It's very important that it be there for the employer because if it's not there that's a problem, or if it's not in the handbook, it's a problem. So employees have to be able to know where to go to make complaint if they have one. Next slide. And lastly, I wanted to just address the fact that a lot of my cases, a person or employee might feel harassed, but the conduct is not so severe and pervasive to constitute harassment. But once they make the complaint, the employer, then makes the mistake of disciplining the complaining employee. So I have a case right now where an employee complained about a coworker who was being sexually harassed and the next day he was fired. So as I put below this protection applies to employees who cooperate with provide support to an investigation into claim discrimination of harassment or makes the complaint. Because even though somebody else may be actually the victim of harassment. If somebody makes a complaint about it and they're disciplined or they're fired. That's prohibited. And I think the next slides. Oh, so I just give examples of retaliation firing or laying off denying overtime or promotion, demoting, reducing hours or pay. Denial benefits, disciplining, intimidating, harassing or making threats. So those are just examples of what happens sometimes when an employee decides, okay, I'm not going to take this anymore and makes a complaint. And that's even if you make a complaint to an outside agency, the employer cannot retaliate for you making the complaint, even if the complaint isn't valid. So let's say a complaint cannot be substantiated by an investigation. Even so, if that person is retaliated against the employer has violated the law in that regard. Next slide. So where can you make a complaint for discrimination or harassment and both by the way, sometimes employers engage in harassment based on some protected categories so harassment doesn't just apply to sex. It applies to all the other protected categories I've already mentioned. So if the employees uncomfortable making the complaint to the employer, you can go to the Vermont Attorney General's office, the Civil Rights Unit. And I understand from Emily and Josh that my PowerPoint might be available to people if they want them so you don't have to quickly write all this down. Those complaints must be filed within 300 days of the adverse action. Remember, there's one exception to this. If you've been harassed or discriminated against in the workplace or have a cost of work environment, you're dealing with. If it's not a supervisor or a manager, you have to complain to the employer first. If you want to, you can also complain to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and the Boston office is the one that covers Vermont. And in both these instances, the complaints have to be filed within 300 days of the adverse action. So if you're fired, you're 300 days from that date to bring your complaint. Next slide. And then there's the Vermont Human Rights Commission and they handle employment discrimination cases involving state employees. So if you work for the state Vermont, you would complain to the Vermont Human Rights Commission, you wouldn't go to the Civil Rights Unit at the Attorney General's office. And this is their contact information. Okay, I think I hit it right on the time I was given. Great. Thank you, Beth. If you bear with me, I am going to transition and let me just check to see if we have questions. So we don't have any questions at this time. So I'm going to switch PowerPoints. And I am going to pick up or Beth left off and talk a little bit more about discrimination in the workplace specific to disability discrimination. So my name is Emily Adams and I work in the Vermont Attorney General's Office Civil Rights Unit, which is that one of the resources that Beth just mentioned on her final slides. Her unit investigates violations of Vermont's Fair Employment Practices Act and several other statutes relating to employment discrimination. And so, in addition to the phone number that Beth listed on her slide, I will also add that we now have some online ways to file a complaint or ask a question. So I encourage you to go to our website. I want to say it's ago.vermont.gov and under the Civil Rights Unit section, there will be also a portal in which you could either ask us a question or file a formal complaint. But what I'm going to talk about today is a little bit more about disability protections under the law. As Beth mentioned, there is both federal and state laws that come into play when you're talking about employment discrimination. When we're talking about disability, that federal law is the Americans with Disabilities Act known as the ADA, and that law is going to apply, excuse me, to employers with 15 or more employees. And also, as Beth mentioned, here in Vermont, we have the Vermont Fair Employment Practices Act, which applies to any employer who has at least one employee. So generally, the concepts I'm going to talk about here are the same under both of those laws. In general, Vermont law is going to follow the federal law, and the same concepts will apply for state employees. There are some additional nuances to the ADA for the purposes of today's discussion. They're fairly similar. So what is a disability? Under the law, it's going to be a physical or mental impairment that substantially limits one or more major life activities. That's a very broad definition, and that's on purpose. There are many different conditions that can be considered disability under the ADA and Vermont Fair Employment Practices Act, and they can be both physical or mental. You can also be covered by the law, though, if you have a history of a disability, even if it's not presently active, for instance, maybe you previously had cancer, but that cancer is in remission. And finally, you can be covered under the law if you may not actually have a disability, but your employer regards you as having a disability. So maybe you are unable to read because you simply never learned, but your employer assumes you have some sort of learning disability and treats you differently accordingly. It is possible that that would fall into the being regarded as category of disability. As mentioned, I'm going to focus mostly here on reasonable accommodations for disabilities, but there is also protections under the law for harassment based on a disability. So if somebody is engaging in that hostile work environment conduct towards you as an employee, because of your disability, making disparaging comments, or again, regarding you as having such a disability and making those comments, you do not, or if an employer is treating you differently in terms and conditions of employment because of your disability, that would fall under that discrimination prong of federal and state law. But what I'd like to focus on here is reasonable accommodations. Reasonable accommodations are a unique aspect of these discrimination laws when it comes to disability in particular. The purpose of a reasonable accommodation is to allow equal employment opportunities and allow employees to perform the essential functions of their job, even if they do have a disability. Reasonable accommodations can mean a lot of things, but generally that's going to be certain modifications to a work environment. Perhaps modifications that allow employee with a disability equal access to benefits and privileges or modifications to a job application process. So the duty to to provide reasonable accommodations extends to employers, even prior to having someone as an employee, but also in the job application process. So what does that really mean? What might a reasonable accommodation look like? Some examples may be making a building actually physically accessible to someone with a physical disability. So maybe it may mean a ramp for a wheelchair. That's a very sort of obvious example. But it also could mean a part-time or a modified work schedule if someone needs to be out of the workplace in order to access treatment for a disability. It could mean providing certain work equipment or technology that could be, for instance, dictation software if someone has some type of disability where typing or writing is difficult for them. It may be allowing extra time in some circumstances to complete a certain workplace task, changing a physical work location if someone needs either a quieter location or a location away from different types of environments. In some circumstances, generally if there's no other accommodation available, a reasonable accommodation may be reassignment to a vacant position. And finally, leave actual time away from the workplace may be a reasonable accommodation if someone needs that leave for treatment of their disability or going to counseling or other disability related purposes. If you need a reasonable accommodation, how do you go about doing so? The first thing you have to do is let the employer know that you need one. The law says that you have to ask that being said there aren't any magic words for doing so. You don't have to expressly invoke the ADA or Vermont law. You can simply say, hey, I need to go to treatment on Tuesdays at four o'clock and it's because of a medical condition. As long as you make it clear that your request is related to your medical condition, that should be considered a request for a reasonable accommodation. The request does not have to be in writing. It can be a verbal or an oral request to the employer. What is an employer's duty once they receive a request for reasonable accommodation? They need to engage in what's known as an interactive process. So this is a discussion with you as the employee as to what you might need and why you might need it. An employer is allowed to ask certain questions about what you might need to allow it to make an informed decision as to what reasonable accommodations it can provide. And they can ask for medical documentation in certain circumstances, so long as the reason for needing the accommodation is not clear on its face. And as long as those requests are tailored to the specific request made, so they can't simply ask for your entire medical record, but they can ask for a note from your doctor or other supporting material as to why that request may be linked to your disability. An employer is not required to offer you the exact accommodation that you request. They may offer alternate reasonable accommodations, so long as they are still effective in allowing you to do those essential functions of your job. And so the purpose of the interactive process is to have that conversation between employer and employee about what's needed, why it's needed, and what can the employer offer to allow that employee to effectively access and do their job. Can an employer decline to accommodate a disability? Under the law, the express way an employer may not be required to provide a reasonable accommodation is if they can prove an undue hardship. This is a challenging thing to prove for an employer, but it must be some sort of significant difficulty or expense in providing that accommodation. It can be a financial difficulty or hardship because the accommodation is unduly extensive or disruptive to the workplace, but that must be analyzed on a case by case basis so they can't simply say, you know, we never allow leave as a reasonable accommodation. They would have to look at your specific circumstance, look at your specific role in the workplace and see whether that is something that they can or cannot offer at that time. An employer is also not required to remove an essential function of a job as a disability. An essential function is going to be a fundamental duty of your position. So one of your key roles. So for instance, in my role, one of my key roles is interacting with the public. It may not be reasonable to ask my employer to remove, you know, to no longer require me to ever interact verbally with members of the public. That's because that's an essential function of my job. So that is one thing that an employer does not have to offer or take away from a certain job role as a reasonable accommodation. So that is reasonable accommodations in a nutshell. I'm going to also talk about with the remaining time, just a little bit about leave laws. The Civil Rights Unit also enforces the provisions of the State Parental and Family Leave Act. There is also the Federal Family and Medical Leave Act known as FMLA. You may have more commonly heard of the FMLA. It is very common for folks who contact our office to get these two confused and FMLA seems to be the acronym that is used most commonly in discussing the leave laws. So what do these laws do? In a nutshell, both laws allow for an employee to take up to 12 weeks of leave during a 12 month period for certain reasons, which I'll talk about on the next slide. One of the small differences in the law, the most critical is that the State Leave Law's parental leave is all employers who have 10 or more employees are required to provide it to eligible employees. And for what's called Family Leave, that's going to be 15 or more employees. The federal law is, they must have at least 50 employees to be covered. The State Law is going to kick in sooner than the federal law, but it does not kick in for all employees like the Fair Employment Practices Act does. There still is a threshold of either 10 or 15 employees. So this is an unpaid leave. You can, what I like to call sort of fund it with accrued paid leave. For instance, if your employer provides you with sick days, you can use those sick days to put towards your PFLA or FMLA time out of the workplace. There's a slight difference. This is getting a little bit into the nuances, the nitty gritty, but under the federal law, employers may require you to use your accrued leave, but under Vermont law they can't require you to use that. So you can still save up your accrued leave for when you come back to work if you would like to do so, and take that leave unpaid. Also, in order to be eligible for this leave have to have worked for an employer for at least one year. And in Vermont it's for an average of 30 hours a week during that previous year. So you do have to have some work history with the employer before they will be required under the law to grant you that leave. So there's also the ability for intermittent leave under the FMLA and PFLA, meaning leave that you take periodically the most common type of leave would be for treatment of some sort of medical condition. So when we're talking about the reasons for leave under I'm going to focus here on the PFLA but again concepts are generally similar. There's also parental leave, which would be, again, if an employer has 15 or more employees they have to offer this and that is leave during pregnancy and following the birth of a child or within the year of a place of placement of a child for adoption. So that's what we might think to as maternal or paternal leave. It's those 12 weeks that then an employer would be required to offer an employee. There's also family leave I always think this one is kind of funny that it's called family leave to me it's really the medical leave provision because this is related to the serious illness of the employee or the employees child step child or ward foster child parent spouse or parent of the spouse. So that is leave that an employee is entitled to if they have their own serious illness, or they need to care for family member who has a serious illness. The only difference here between state and federal law is that I believe that the types of family members is expanded under state law. There are more more family members listed than under federal law. If you're seeking to request leave under the PFLA, you do need to give reasonable written notice the law says, and you need to include the date the leave is expected to commence and the duration of that leave. Sorry, this says six months but what that should say is six weeks you're not required to be given more than six weeks notice prior to birth or adoption that is a typo. In the case of a serious illness, the employer can require medical certification, meaning some note from a doctor or other information certifying that you do in fact have a serious illness or your family member has a serious illness. And this is job protective leave so the key to that is that so long as you return generally within the timeframe indicated those 12 weeks, you're offered the same job at the same level of compensation with the same benefit seniority and other terms of employment that you had when you left. There are limited exceptions under the law to that for instance, everyone in your position would have been laid off during that time. You may not be able to get that same job back for a reason entirely unrelated to your leave. And then I added the bottom here what if I need more than 12 weeks so what if my illness isn't resolved in 12 weeks well that may not be the end of the story. So what if your disability laws, their leave can be a reasonable accommodation for a disability so a lot of these laws have overlaps, but it's important to talk with your employer about what you need. See what's available and it's really going to be a case by case analysis as to what your particular needs are and what types of leads may apply. I don't have a slide directly on this but also asked Beth mentioned all of these laws have anti retaliation provisions, meaning that if you are seeking reasonable accommodations are seeking leave. Your employer cannot retaliate against you and the ways that mentioned for seeking those things so they can't say you know what I'm just firing you or stop asking me about that time off you need I just want you out of here just be easier if you're in a different position I can't do that. And this is one that I bring up briefly and Dirk you may be bringing this up and this is more in your purview but you know we talked about PFL a being something that is for a serious illness. So that's not going to be just sick time you can use for any, any sort of cold or run of the mill sick thing you might use sickly for but this is a more recent law that's enforced by the Vermont Department of Labor. That does allow some paid leave to address personal and family needs. I think it's generally one hour of sick time for every 52 hours work that can be a crude. And no employers can be more generous than that and paid sick leave they provide but this is sort of the, the baseline what employers must provide in terms of actual paid time off that's considered sick time under Vermont's earned sick time act. So that is both some additional insight on disability laws and leave laws. Are there any questions at this time. Right. Seeing none. We're going to switch gears now from our disability and discrimination section of the programming and we're going to talk now about various wage related aspects of the law starting with Kelly who's going to talk about Vermont's unemployment loss. Thank you, Emily. As I said, I am Kelly Kazmarski I'm a staff attorney at Vermont legal aid. And I work in the St. Johns very office. I do not have a PowerPoint this evening. But I, I'm dividing my presentation into three basic sections. The first first item that I'd like to talk about is eligibility for unemployment benefits and some of the basics that make a person eligible unemployment benefits in general are meant to help workers who are unemployed through no fault of their own. And they're meant to help pay the bills and to keep people off of other forms of public assistance while they are looking for work in order to qualify for unemployment benefits or to be eligible for benefits. Generally, a person must first be monetarily eligible, which I'll talk about in a minute, and then also be otherwise qualified for benefits. So first the monetary eligibility piece, which is essentially there are rules regarding past employment history and there are minimum earnings requirements in order for a person to generally be eligible for unemployment benefits. And in general, a person cannot be self employed, or an independent contractor or sort of a gig employee and qualify for regular unemployment benefits. So these rules changed during the pandemic and during during COVID changes came around so that people who are not normally monetarily eligible for unemployment are now because of these special COVID rules. So for example, self employed folks independent contractors, there, there are benefits available for people who lost that employment due to COVID. Another part for regular eligibility for unemployment benefits is that a person must not only be monetarily eligible but also otherwise qualified for benefits. And generally that means a person must be first able and available for work, which generally means that they are physically and mentally able to work, and that there is no barrier to their availability for work. Again during COVID there were special rules and still are special rules in place so that if a person is not able or available to work directly because of COVID, that would not disqualify them for benefits. For a person to otherwise be qualified or eligible for benefits, they must also have lost their employment through no fault of their own. And there are many ways that this could happen. A person could be laid off when the employer has no work available. A person could be discharged from their work but not from misconduct. Sometimes people are discharged because it's just not working out. Not because they've done necessarily anything wrong. As was explained we are an at will state in terms of employment so someone who's discharged but not from misconduct should still be eligible for unemployment. Someone who has to leave a job for health reasons and can't do that particular job, but is otherwise able and available to do other work is generally also qualified for benefits there is a short period of disqualification in that instance but otherwise they are generally able to get unemployment benefits. And then finally, as was touched upon previously, if a person leaves their job for reasons directly attributable to the employer, for example, if a person is suffering discrimination in the workplace. They notify the employer of the discrimination by a coworker for example, and the employer does not do anything to fix that problem. The worker is likely eligible for and qualified for unemployment benefits if they leave that job as a result of the employer's failure to remedy the discrimination. This is hard to prove if somebody leaves directly because of the employer's action. It has to be more than just the, you know, the boss is a jerk kind of thing. And so there is a, there is a burden of proof on the claimant to show that the employer was at fault. And as I said there is a duty on the part of the employee to first report what's happening before they would be eligible for benefits for leaving that job. A person is not eligible for benefits if they voluntarily quit their job, even for what might be good reasons. Unfortunately, if somebody leaves a job, because they have lost daycare for example. While that is a good reason to leave a job, it would not make someone qualified for unemployment benefits. Now, there is an exception in place if a daycare is closed, for example, directly because of COVID. If a person has to leave a job for that reason, they would still be eligible for benefits but in normal times when, when we're not dealing with COVID, quitting because of lack of daycare unfortunately would be considered a voluntary quit and a person would not be qualified for benefits. If a person is fired for misconduct, or for gross misconduct, benefits would not be appropriate. And finally, if a person is truly not able to work and unemployment benefits are not appropriate in that case a person should probably be seeking either in the case of an injury on the job or some sort of disability benefits. Unemployment is strictly for folks who are able to work and looking for work and just are unemployed through no fault of their own. So the next part of my discussion is going to be about, if someone thinks they're eligible, how do they apply and what can they expect. Finally, you have to call the Department of Labor to apply right now because of fraud issues that came up with online applications during the pandemic. You can find out all the information, phone numbers, everything about how to apply on the Department of Labor website which is at labor dot Vermont dot gov. And I will provide a list of resources that I think Emily can make available to folks later. Once you have applied you register for work online, and then weekly claims are filed online. And for folks who have a hardship. If English is their second language or if they do not have a computer for example, there is help available through the Department of Labor for those weekly claims and the registration for work. When a person files their weekly claims, they must be reporting offers of work, offers of suitable work, and they must also be reporting about their work search. So anyone who receives unemployment benefits generally must be also looking for work. Right now there are some COVID exceptions to the work search requirement. Early on in the pandemic the governor also exempted everyone from the work search because of the dangers associated with the virus but now that we're doing much better with the virus here in Vermont. As our numbers are way down the work search exemption has generally been lifted and as of early May, most people who are getting unemployment benefits have to be looking for work and reporting that to the Department of Labor each week. There are some limited exemptions still available for people who have COVID related reasons that they can't look for work. But there, there are very specific reasons and really folks are going to have to be probably providing additional documentation to get those work search waivers at this point. A work search, a proper work search involves direct communication with at least three suitable employers each week. Browsing a website with with job opportunities would not be considered a valid work search. And a person must actually apply for suitable jobs in the manner that's customary for that job. So if somebody normally applies for a job by submitting a resume, it would not be suitable or suitable work search for someone to just casually inquire. Are you folks hiring that would not be that would not meet the work search requirements. If a person refuses an offer of suitable work and and offers of work must be reported also on the weekly claims reports. Someone will be disqualified from receiving unemployment benefits this I think is an important piece to note. I've heard many people say recently that folks are choosing to remain on unemployment benefits when they have job opportunities available. And this is simply not true. If someone refuses an offer of work, they will not be qualified for unemployment benefits, a person cannot choose whether to accept an offer or stay on unemployment. So I just wanted to really make that point. suitable work is defined as work that the person has a history of working in and is not dangerous, or otherwise too far away, or perhaps outside of their normal working hours, for example. How much a person can expect in unemployment benefits has to do with their work history. And there have been various state and federal supplements added on during the pandemic. Currently, there is an additional federal pandemic supplement that is in effect of an additional $300 a week on top of the weekly benefit amount. The supplements are set to expire September 4. And a person can receive unemployment benefits generally for 26 weeks in a benefit year, although that has also been changed because of coded. And as of now a person can get benefits for a maximum maximum of 79 weeks, or until September 4, whichever comes first. And then just briefly the last section I wanted to review is is really about what if there are problems. If someone applies for benefits or is receiving benefits and then running runs into problems. There have been denied unemployment benefits disqualified from receiving benefits or received some sort of notice about an overpayment of benefits. Generally their recourse is to appeal that determination. Now, it's important to note that before an official determination is given out oftentimes claimants might be contacted by a claims adjudicator with the Department of Labor. And if that happens. Don't ignore those calls or those emails because it's really a claimants first opportunity to present their side of the story and what happened. If you do not respond. It's likely that you will receive an unfavorable determination from the claims adjudicator. And if that happens, if you receive any determination that you disagree with, you should appeal that determination. There is a strict 30 day deadlines for appealing any Department of Labor determination and unemployment context. They might be in writing, and they can be sent though by email or by fax or by snail mail. There are forms available to appeal a determination, but they are not necessary. There are no magic words, as long as you are clear in identifying who you are. And saying that you disagree with the determination made by the Department of Labor. That just needs to be done in writing and it needs to be received by the department within 30 days of the date of the determination. There are three levels to the appeals process. At the first level, there is a phone hearing conducted by an administrative law judge, these hearings were on the phone even before COVID. And it's a chance for the claimant to present any additional evidence on their case, and the judge takes a fresh look at everything and makes a new determination. And as I said, this is the last chance to admit evidence. So that's the important piece about that level of appeal. If the administrative law judges decision is unfavorable, a person can appeal to the Employment Security Board, which is a legal review board only. I hear legal arguments about why the judges decision was not correct. And if the Employment Security Board decision is unfavorable there's one more level of appeal at the Vermont Supreme Court, but again no new evidence will be viewed at that time. And I know this is a lot and I'm coming to the end of my time, but I just wanted to briefly mention that if someone needed help with an unemployment claim. I would recommend that they look at the Vermont Department of Labor website there's lots of really helpful information about everything from how to apply to what law applies to how to start an appeal of a decision. I also recommend contacting Vermont legal aid. If you need help, we have a website at vtlawhelp.org that has lots of information about unemployment benefits and other civil legal issues. And you can also find there an online help request form, or you can, and you'll find our phone number to call to also request help. So I will send a list of resources to Emily that hopefully will be available for viewers. If anyone needs that. Thank you. Thank you Kelly that was very informative and yes we are going to work on how we can get some of this PowerPoint materials and other resources to folks as needed after the presentation or maybe posted along with the video. Great. So at this point we're going to continue our wage related discussions with some further discussion of minimum wage and overtime. And I think that will be both Josh diamond and jerk Anderson that will be chatting on this topic. Thank you Emily. So, the information I want to share with you all today cover three various areas, minimum wage, when our wages do and overtime. So both federal and state law address minimum wage what is the minimum hourly amount of money that you should receive for each hour worked. The good news is that Vermont law does fairly much better I should say, then federal law, federal law is $7 and 25 cents per hour, but we offer greater protections here in Vermont. So currently, the minimum wage is $11 and 75 cents. If you are a tipped employee if you're a server at a restaurant. That is $5 and 88 cents per hour. And the minimum wage is going up in 2022 to $12 and 55 cents. Now employers can choose with some limited discretion. When they pay you. They can choose to pay on a weekly basis, a bi weekly basis or a bi monthly basis. And for whatever program is chosen, they must pay you within six days after the completion of that time period. Also, if you are terminated, your wages owed must be paid to you within 72 hours. And we'll get into the remedies in a second about what happens if you don't receive the minimum wage or paid in a timely manner. But let me talk a little bit about overtime before we get to that in both under Vermont law and federal law. If you work more than 40 hours, it is presumed that you will be entitled to earning time and a half. So you reduce what your hourly wages from if you have a salary or if you're at an hourly rate and your title to 1.5 times that amount for each hour worked above 40 hours. Now there are some exceptions and the exceptions require the employer to prove that you fall within the definition of those exceptions. Otherwise your employer owes you that money. There are generally four recognized exceptions, there are a few others but form that mostly come into play, and we're going to go over those tests about what an employer would have to prove in order to have you be classified within that exemption. And the first test that applies to all of the exemptions is that you got to be earning at least $684 per week or an equivalent of about $35,568 per year. If your weekly wage or your annual salary falls below that, then even if you satisfy the definitions for the other categories of exemptions, your employer still must pay you overtime for each hour worked over 40 hours in a work week. So what are these exemptions. First is known as the executive employee exemption. And that applies to those employees whose primary duty involves managing a business department or subdivision of the business. And generally that requires that executive employee to have the ability and the responsibility to supervise two or more employees full time employees, and the ability to hire or fire those employees or at least have their recommendation followed upon. Now what is a primary duty. There is a presumption that if those duties that you spend your time on involve managing the business department or subdivision or supervising or and supervising comports to 50% of your time, then that's a primary duty. But you don't have to be spending 50% of your time to also satisfy that definition of the most important aspect of your duty is to be engaged in managing a business department or subdivision, then that could be less than 50%. But bottom line is you're not an executive employee unless your primary duty is the management of a business, and you're directing work of two subordinates and have the ability to hire or fire. So that's exemption number one executive employees. Generally, generally recognized exemption are for administrative employees. And that is someone whose primary duty is performing office or non manual work related to the management or general business operations. And that position must be able to exercise discretion and independent judgment with respect to matters of significance. Let's take an example here. It's a manufacturing business. You're a line worker, you're actually making the product you're making the cars you're making the skis, what have you, you are not going to be an administrative employee. But if you're working in the back office, let's say, you're in charge of the finances of the business, even though you may not be supervising anyone. And you have the ability to bind the company, let's say to a loan or a letter of credit that may qualify you as an administrative employee that is part of your primary duties at the end of the day. The third recognized exemption are for professional employees and those are employees whose primary duty is the performance of work, usually requiring an advanced degree in and or advanced knowledge. And it also must be one that exercises discretion and judgment of matters of significance. Think of doctors lawyers engineers. And there's also an in computer employee exemption. So for those employees that are applying techniques and procedures and the design analysis or creation of computer systems or programs, they will as well have an exemption. So even if you meet these definitions, you got to have that salary salary level of more than 35,500 and I believe $84 or thereabouts. So there are often questions that come to mind about overtime. And one is comp time, you know, I don't want either the employee says I don't want the overtime I'd rather have more days off, or the employer to save some money says I'll give you days off instead of. paying you the overtime. Unless you're a state employee comp time is illegal. The employer has the obligation to pay you time and a half after working 40 hours, and there is no compensatory time. Another set of questions come up well I'm traveling for my job. And so the general rules are this. If you're traveling during your typical work day. That's work performed. But if you're traveling after hours, let's say you're a passenger on an airplane train bus or automobile that typically is not counted towards your 40 hours. If you're driving that bus or car, it will be counted. As well if you're after hours staying in a hotel. And you have the freedom to do whatever you want to do read a book watch TV things of that nature, that will also generally not count towards your 40 hour minimum, or the overtime after 40 hours. If you're on call that's a whole other question. And if you have limited ability to enjoy yourself and engage in recreational activities and have to be ready to respond on a moment's notice that also can be counted towards the hours work. So, where, what remedies do you have available. If you're not paid minimum wage, if you're not paid timely, and you're not paid your overtime. Generally speaking and there are some exceptions, generally speaking, you are entitled to twice the amount of what you are owed. Now, some of the exceptions may apply under federal law for overtime. If the employer can say it or can show I should say that it acted reasonably and in good faith and that usually requires some kind of legal opinion or opinion from the US Department of Labor. You are also entitled to attorneys fees. If you pursue an action. And if you pursue an action for overtime and are retaliated against that also violates the law for which you are entitled to remedies. Now you can seek a remedy by filing a lawsuit getting your own attorney and filing a lawsuit. Now you can also approach regulators, and I'll turn it over to Dirk in a moment to talk about how they handle these types of claims, but there are two regulators here in Vermont. There's the wage an hour division for the Vermont Department of Labor, and there are also, there's a US Department of Labor which also can receive complaints. So with that in mind, let me turn it over to Dirk Anderson, general counsel for the Vermont Department of Labor to talk a little bit about how they handle wage an hour claims. Thank you, Josh. Can you hear me. I think I'm unmuted. Okay, great. So again, Dirk Anderson I worked for the Vermont Department of Labor. And I'm going to talk about a couple of things real quick because we're a little behind time and you know Aaron Gallivan has some very important things to say about workers compensation. And I want to give her an opportunity to do that in the time we have. Josh said, if you feel that you are owed wages, either because you're paid less than the minimum wage you're not paid overtime. If you have a legal deductions taken from your pay. That is also against the law and employer cannot pay you less than the money that you earned because you broke something or you know if you're, you know, working at convenience store there's a gas drive off. They can't take that money out of your pay. If, if any of those things happen, you can file a complaint with the Vermont Department of Labor's wage an hour division. All that information is on our website at labor.vermont.gov. A claims examiner will take your statements and investigate it. And we have the authority to order back wages paid and if the violation is a willful one we can also impose double damages. I'll move on again because of the time to talking about workplace safety, which sort of segues into Aaron's workers compensation piece. Vermont, like many states in the country has a what's called we're what's called a state plan OSHA state. And that means that we have a department within the Department of Labor division known as the Vermont Occupational Safety and Health Administration. OSHA looks at workplace safety. And their main job is to ensure that all Vermont employees have a safe workplace and under the OSHA act and as adopted by the state of Vermont. I mean, there's I'm going to try and leave you with three main points here. And the first of those is that as an employee, you are entitled to a safe workplace. And what that means is that your employer has a general duty to ensure that it takes reasonable steps to protect you against known hazards. Most workplaces come with their own sets of potential hazardous situations and injuries. I'm going to just cover some primary ones here and I'm going to try the screen share, see if it works. So hopefully you can see this. This is just a graphic that I'm just going to cover some some very common injuries that your employer has an obligation to protect you from. Perhaps the biggest one is fall protection. Okay, if you work on a roof. If you are working on a scaffolding if you work from a ladder. Unfortunately, we just had an employee killed a couple of days ago painter who fell from 30 feet on a ladder. If you work at height, anything above six feet off the ground. Your employer has a duty to ensure that the equipment you are using is safe is expected. If you're on a roof that you're tied off, or that there are other safety measures in place to protect you. Another very common type of workplace hazard is a respiratory hazard. If you work with toxic chemicals. If you work with cleaning salt supplies if you work with solvents. If you work with glues or paint. All these things that if inhaled can make you sick. You're entitled to a respirator or a mask and your employer should provide you with that. Eye protection is important. If you work in a job that requires you to, you know, to grind steel or cut wood or anything that can throw up chips or sparks, you should be provided with eye protection. A lot of injuries come because an employee uses a piece of equipment that is not operable and should be locked out or disconnected from a power source. And an employee, this is what's known as lockout tag out an employer has an obligation. If they are working on a piece of equipment to disconnect it from a power source, so that nobody could be inadvertently injured, if that device or piece of equipment were to suddenly have a source of power resupplied to it. Industrial trucks, forklifts, another source of injury. Okay, I'm running time I'm going to move right along here. Something that's a little less. I'll just start sharing here is a little bit less of an obvious hazard is key. I mean it's been very hot out. If you work outdoors or in an air conditioned environment your employer has an obligation to provide you with water, shade and periods of rest. And another to go a few minutes longer, we can run over the 730 so don't worry about that. Okay, I'm almost, I'll wrap it up for Aaron here. One important thing to remember. This is a common thread amongst all the presenters today. If you report than a hazard to your employer if you say like hey the brakes on this truck don't work, or you know this ladder is busted or whatever. If you are retaliated against or you know fire discipline transferred to a less desirable job. The Department of Labor will investigate that we have a whistleblower investigator, and you are entitled to if that if you are retaliated against you have remedies. Finally, if you are injured on the job. Another important thing you can do is let your employer know. Don't try and hide it because you're embarrassed say hey I got hurt. I need medical treatment and I need to file for you need to file a first report of injury on my behalf. In case I am entitled to workers compensation. And with that, I will transfer it to Aaron. So last but certainly not least is Aaron Gallivan is going to talk about workers compensation and I think we can expect that we will go over the 730 mark by a little bit today is just to give folks the heads up I am going to share Aaron's PowerPoint so bear with me. Thank you Emily. Hi, I'm Aaron Gallivan, and I work at Larson and Gallivan lot in Rutland, Vermont. And as Dirk said I'm going to be talking about workers compensation. So you can go to the next slide Emily. So, generally speaking, workers compensation provides benefits for illness or injury related to work. And the benefits include four categories of benefits, and I'm going to get go into these categories and a little more detail in a few minutes but they generally are wage replacement medical care vocational rehabilitation and something called permanency and again I'll, I'll talk about those a little a little more detail in a minute. To have a workers compensation claim you do not have to prove the employer was at fault. It can be a complete accident. You know you could trip over your own shoelace. You know just walking to, to the employee bathroom, as long as it happens at work. It does have to be either on the premises, which can include by the way things like the parking lot or. The employer premises or it during a work activity so if you're off site, or if you're required to drive with your job and you're driving things like that. Those are all covered by workers compensation. Next slide. So I want to talk just briefly about how workers comp claims are different from other kinds of injury claims, mainly what we lawyers would refer to as personal injury. A personal injury claim is you know you get in a car accident or you have a slip and fall that the Hannah birds parking lot with those kinds of claims. That's sort of what we sort of most people typically understand the injury claims with those kind of claims you actually have to do something to pursue them and the workers comp world. If you get hurt at work you have a workers compensation claim you don't have to, you don't have to do anything in particular. If you get hit you don't have to sue your employer. You don't have to know nothing that you have to do the law requires that the, the employer is the one who files the paperwork and files the claim with the Department of Labor. The other big one other big difference is in personal injury claim. The compensation that you're entitled to is far greater and workers compensation is just the four categories of benefits that I already mentioned that I'll get into later. In a workers comp claim, once the claims been accepted, your medical bills and your other benefits are paid as they've incurred so that's a big benefit with workers comp whereas with personal injury claims you don't get the money until the end. In workers compensation claims there is no compensation for pain and suffering or emotional distress. When you hear if you might hear on the news, a personal injury settlement or award that might sound like a lot of money. And typically that most of that money is for things like pain and suffering emotional distress things like that workers compensation does not provide benefits for that kind of thing. The system is provide designed to provide you with a little bit of money. And that's what you end up getting pretty much in every case it's all relative but you know depending on the injury. And then the other difference is that a workers compensation claims stays open forever. You know for the rest of your life and unless you opt to close it out. And that's different from personal injury claims. Next slide. So, the players in the workers compensation world. First, there's the employee who's also the employee excuse me also referred to as the injured worker or the claimant. There's the employer. And then separate from that is the insurance company. So, you have to have insurance on your car personally. Employers have to have workers compensation insurance and so an employer will purchase insurance from Liberty Mutual or State Farm or whoever to provide their workers compensation coverage so the insurance company is really separate from the employer. And the adjuster is the person who works for the insurance company who is the individual that you would be dealing with these kinds of claims. And the insurance company is the entity that makes the decisions in terms of whether to accept or deny the claim and sort of administrating all the benefits. The last sort of player is the Department of Labor Department of Labor wears two hats with regards to workers comp. Similar I think to unemployment in the sense that, you know, on the one hand they sort of administer the rules they draft forms they set the ground rules for how the system is supposed to work. But the other hat they wear is that they adjudicate claims so if there's a dispute between the claimant and the insurance company, the Department of Labor steps in and decides those issues. But the Department of Labor is neutral and is not doesn't represent either, or isn't supposed to favor either the employee or the employer. Next slide. So, the four benefits that I mentioned. Again, are the wage replacement medical bills, vocation rehabilitation and permanency so the first category of the benefit is the temporary wage replacement and the legal name for that is temporary total disability. And this is, you know, is a weekly payment. You are entitled to it if a doctor says that you cannot work at all. So, again, you can't sort of say to your employer well you know I got hurt I can't work and get temporary total disability has to be based on a doctor's note saying you can't work at all because of the injury. The amount that you receive for the weekly wage replacement in most cases is two thirds of your average weekly gross wages. So if you make $15 an hour and work 40 hours a week, you're earning $600 a week in gross wages that is before taxes. And so, typically it's two thirds of the gross which be 400. Now there are a bunch of exceptions to that, including that there's a minimum rate, which is, I've got to just changed it was 468. Dirk if you know what it is you can jump in and say what it is now I don't have the, the number off the top of my head. Sorry. What is it. I don't know. It's, it's just under 500 a week now so if you if you're a lower wage worker, and the two thirds of your gross wages is less than this minimum amount and you get the minimum amount it was 468 now it's close to $500. Again, the weekly benefit is paid weekly and the law just changed those that so that you can require the, or you can ask for a direct deposit for for those payments to be made. So these temporary wage replacement benefits stop generally speaking when one of two things happens. One is if you return to work at the same rate of pay that you were making before, then the benefits can just, they could just stop paying them. And then the second situation where they typically will they will stop is when you reach something called a medical endpoint. A medical endpoint is a medical determination made by a doctor. So either your own doctor or sometimes, or the insurance company can send you to a doctor of their choosing to make this determination and what it means is that, in essence, is really nothing more they can do medically to improve your condition. So it doesn't mean you're all better. You might still be in pain you might be still having some problems but generally speaking they've sort of done what they can do to treat your condition. That means you're at a medical end and again you might still need medical care prescriptions things like that you still are entitled to that. And if you do reach a medical end and the insurance company wants to terminate your benefits they have to file a form with the Department of Labor and send you a copy. So that's the temporary wage replacement or temporary total disability. The second category of benefits this is really the main benefit of workers compensation is that the insurance company has to pay all the medical bills that are related to the injury. So, you know, for most people this is something that happens behind the scenes. You know you, you won't even see a medical bill or you won't see an ELB that can sometimes be challenging because you won't know if a bill hasn't been paid until you get the bill sent to you in the mail or in person letter. But again, you know, when the claim is accepted, then the medical bills should be paid. They're, you know, they don't have to pay all medical bills if you want to treat with, you know, some treatment that's not, you know, medically sort of accepted. You know, not approved by the FDA or something like that. Then they can deny those but generally speaking they have to pay all the medical bills. Next slide. The third category is vocational rehabilitation. So, not all claimants are entitled to this benefit. Generally speaking though if you cannot return to the same pay so it doesn't have to be the same job. But if you can't find another find a job, generally the same pay because of the work entry, then you might be entitled to voc rehab. And the benefit is basically you work with a voc rehab counselor. They provide, they might come up with a plan for you to do training or to take classes or to get an associate's degree, that sort of thing. It's not a guarantee of a new job. It's just coming up with a plan to how can we return you to a similar wage. And this, and by the way, the vocational rehabilitation with workers comp is not the same as the voc rehab department with the state of Vermont. Sometimes there's confusion about that. And the last category of benefits is called permanent impairment and the legal term is permanent partial disability that this is an assessment again done by a doctor when you're at a medical end. Not all doctors can do this kind of rating they have to be qualified. And what the doctor does is evaluates you and assigns a percentage rating I'm not going to get into detail about what that entails because it's complicated. But then the amount that you are entitled to is based on a formula and has three numbers in the formula. The first number is the weekly compensation rate, which is the same amount as the, the temporary wage replacement so that two thirds of your average weekly wage that figure is the first number in this formula. The second number is the percentage impairment. And then the third number is either 405 weeks, or if it's a spinal injury, any injury you know to your neck or lower back it's 550 weeks so then you just you do the math to determine what the amount is that you are entitled to. You can have your own doctor do a rating insurance company has a right to have their doctor do a rating sometimes there's disputes about that. But that is the permanency. So those four benefits that's it for workers comp there is one other benefit if you're more seriously injured and you really can't go back to work more than say 20 hours a week. So that's a permanent total disability but that's really a, it's almost a whole different case. So, but those are the only benefits that you're entitled to for workers compensation. Next slide. Sorry, the other, the only other benefit is reimbursement for mileage and if you travel to doctors appointments or for training for voc rehab, you are entitled to be reimbursed for that the mileage and you are also entitled to be reimbursed for time that you spend in medical appointments, your employer has to pay you for that time. Next slide. So the process, as Dirk already mentioned, you, you have to tell your employer as soon as possible. When you want to determine or even if you think you have a work injury or some sort of illness that can be an illness as well it doesn't have to be an injury. You have to get medical care as soon as possible because the documentation by a doctor of what happened is really integral. When you do see the doctor tell the doctor in detail how the injury occurred. You want to ask your employer for the information on their insurance company. The insurance company is the one who will do the investigation who will again make a determination on the claim. So if you haven't heard from the insurance company within like a week or so. And the employer won't give you the information you should call the Vermont Department of Labor, then you can find their number on their website and just, you know, tell them you've been injured and you haven't heard from the insurance company yet. The insurance company is supposed to have 21 days in which to accept or deny the claim, and then they have to give you notice of that writing. If you again if you don't hear within 21 days contact the Department of Labor. If the claim is denied. Then what you want to do is get your medical records and file an appeal with the Department of Labor. Most in most cases the denial, when a case is denied, it's because the insurance company says it's not related to work or there's no medical evidence saying it's related. So if you are going to pursue a claim you have to have something in writing from a doctor that says the injury was caused by work and it's not enough for the doctor to say it's possible that it was caused by work they have to say it's more likely than not or that that is what happened. Next slide. If you can't go back to work. Under workers compensation law, the employer can terminate your employment. It is not illegal to employ to to terminate someone because they can't work. Now, they're not allowed to fire you because you filed a workers compensation claim that would be retaliation. But it's like if you can't do your job, then they can let you go. We've already talked about FMLA we already heard about that that may provide protection to keep you from being fired for three months if you qualify for under those laws under the state or federal law. If you are released to work by a doctor but with restrictions. The employer can require you to return to work. But the other side of that is they are not generally they're not required to offer you like duty work. So this is a sort of a weird kind of area, but some employers make work available some employers don't but also be aware of the ADA and the right to accommodation. You might have rights under under that law. If you return to work at a lower weekly pay, you still get temporary disability benefits they're just partial. If an employer access to receive exceed the restrictions you should say no you can say no and you should say no. And if your return to work causes your symptoms to worsen, you should immediately return return to your doctor. I think that's my last slide is that is that it. Yes, looks like it. So, sorry. That's totally fine. So, thank you, Erin. Very informative. And that concludes our people's law school presentation for tonight. I really want to thank everyone for joining us and especially these presenters for participating in the session. This presentation will be available on the Attorney General's Office's Facebook page and also at cctv.org which I think is also town meeting TV. Thanks to everyone again and have a great evening. Thank you. Thank you.