The Increasing Risk of Cancer in Younger Employees, US Women's Health, and more (Issue 59)

Sorry for the lack of a post over the last few weeks. I was busy traveling down unda', where we fed 'roos, snorkeled near the Great Barrier Reef, and ate some of the best Asian fusion I've ever had. I'm also a big footy fan now (Go Bombers !).

On to this week's newsletter!

Cancer is a growing issue for younger employees: We talked in a previous newsletter about how cancer is the most expensive condition for employer health plans, ahead of musculoskeletal and cardiovascular. Of particular concern is that younger Americans are being diagnosed with cancer at increasing rates . One example of this is how colorectal cancers - the leading cause of death in men under 50 and the second-leading cause for women under 50 - are larger at diagnosis than before.

There's a belief that the trend is partially being driven by delayed access to cancer screenings and other preventative visits during the pandemic. Employers worried about this trend can explore how to increase the rate of cancer screenings among their workforce and innovative tests like the Galleri blood test from GRAIL .

In the big picture, we should celebrate that the US cancer death rate has fallen by a third in the last few decades. That being said, certain diagnoses have been steadily increasing and we do see significant racial and ethnic disparities in cancer deaths.

US women's health compared to the rest of the world: The The Commonwealth Fund publishes comparative health insights and this recent look at women's health across different countries found some notable differences for US women:

• US women had the lowest life expectancy of 80 years compared to women in other high-income countries and the highest rate of avoidable deaths
• US women are more likely to take multiple prescriptions and have among the highest rates of mental health and social needs. On top of this, that rate is nearly 50% higher for Black women.
• US women have among the lowest rates of access to a regular doctor or place of care, and among the highest rates of unnecessary emergency room visits. This is pronounced for Black women.
• US women have among the highest rates of skipping or delaying needed care because of the cost and having problems with medical bills
• US women have the highest rate of cardiovascular disease, which is the leading cause of death for women in the US with 300,000 deaths in 2021

In light of these findings, employers can differentiate their benefits by taking a proactive approach to women's health to better support their female employees.

?? Labor, Employment & Compliance Updates

Judge Strikes Down Upcoming FTC Ban on Non-Competes: A judge in Texas set aside the FTC's proposed ban on non-compete agreements, so it will no longer go into effect on September 4th as intended. Many business groups opposed the FTC ban, obviously, but expect the FTC to appeal.

Federal Courts Divided over FTC’s Non-Compete Ban Final Rule: Only a few weeks after a Texas federal court granted a preliminary injunction, which stayed enforcement of the Federal Trade Commission’s (FTC) Final Rule (“Rule”) banning most non-compete agreements, a Pennsylvania federal court reached a dramatically different conclusion. In sharp contrast to the decision issued by the Texas court, it declined to enter an injunction and held the FTC likely has the legal authority to issue the Rule. Read more

Marijuana Legalization Leads U.S. Workers to Increasingly Test Positive and Cheat on Employer Drug Screens: According to Quest Diagnostics, one of the nation’s leading drug-testing laboratories, positive marijuana tests among the U.S. workforce increased to 4.5% in 2023. The percentage of positive tests was 4.3% in 2022 and 3.1% in 2019. In 2023, Quest conducted about 8.4 million urine drug tests for employers, plus 1.3 million oral fluid tests and 73,000 hair tests. Read more

What You Post on Facebook Can and Will Be Used Against You: Anyone who once thought that Facebook was a safe place to vent grievances or insult others probably knows by now that social media is no refuge for posting something that you wouldn’t usually say, for example, to your employee. But a Vermont employer learned that lesson the hard way, with a federal district court allowing a lawsuit to move forward in which a former employee alleges that his former employer’s Facebook posts about him were unlawful retaliation. Read more

But The Applicant Didn’t Tell Me They Were Disabled: According to the EEOC, after a newly-hired scheduling assistant informed the employer about her vision impairments and need for accommodation, ‘the employer questioned why she did not raise these issues in her interview, and immediately terminated her.’ The employer also apparently ignored offers from her vocational representative to provide – and pay for – the accommodations she needed. Which eventually led to the EEOC suing the employer for violating the Americans with Disabilities Act. Read more

Employee May Be Fired for Refusing to Cooperate in Employer’s Investigation: The employer had a legitimate reason to terminate an employee based on his refusal to cooperate in the investigation into his possible wrongdoing, according to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. Moreover, the fact that his termination occurred 56 days after his internal discrimination complaints meant that there was not sufficient temporal proximity to support the claim of unlawful retaliation. Read more

Election Season is Upon Us: Navigating Politics in the Workplace in 2024: In today’s divisive climate, political speech in the workplace is a topic of increasing relevance and complexity. While workplace discrimination based on race, gender, religion, age, or disability has long been prohibited, discrimination on the basis of an employee’s political affiliations or beliefs is a more nuanced, often overlooked challenge since it is not among the characteristics protected under federal workplace anti-discrimination laws. Read more

Delay In California’s Minimum Wage Increase for Health Care Workers: The increased health care minimum wage was set to go into effect on June 1, 2024; however, on May 31, 2024, Governor Newsom signed SB 828, which provided for a one month delay, to July 1, 2024. Now, there is a further delay after Governor Newsom and state legislators came to an agreement to delay implementation of the increased health care minimum wage until October 15, 2024 (possibly until January 1, 2025) upon passage of AB 159. Read more

That's it for this week's newsletter! Please reach out to me with any questions and schedule time on my calendar here .