The 80th Session of the Nevada Legislature concluded at midnight on June 3, 2019. The session was a historic one. For the first time in U.S. history, a state legislature had more female members than male members. The Legislature made a lot of changes in many areas of law. One of the most pronounced areas of law where changes were made was in employment and labor law.

Without further adieu, the Nevada Legislature made these five major changes to Nevada employment and labor laws:

1. Paid Time Off for Private Employees

The Legislature passed and Governor Steve Sisolak signed Senate Bill 312, which is a bill that requires paid time off be provided to employees in private employment. The law applies to all employers with 50 or more employees.

Under the law sponsored by term-limited State Senator Joyce Woodhouse, employees must be permitted to earn at least one week (5 days) of paid time off for each year of employment. Employees are also permitted to carry over one week (5 days) of paid time off into the next year. Thus, an employee is permitted to carry a total of 10 days of paid time off at any one time.

Employees earn paid time off on an accrual basis. The earning amount is 0.01923 per hour of work, which as you probably suspect adds up to 40 hours (5 full time days) for a year of work. Employers must provide their employees with the earning of the paid time off or face an action by the Labor Commissioner. An employer violating the law may be held liable with a $5,000 penalty for each violation and an employer may also be charged with a misdemeanor. Each employer is also required to keep records concerning its employees’ time off.

2. Collective Bargaining for State Workers

Until this Legislative Session, Nevada has been a bit of an anomaly when it comes to collective bargaining for public employees. Local government employees are permitted to form unions and collectively bargain with their employer. But, employees of any state government agency are not permitted to collectively bargain or form unions for the purposes of collective bargaining.

This will all change with the Legislature’s passage and the Governor’s signature on Senate Bill 135. This bill provides collective bargaining rights to all employees of the Executive Department. The subjects of bargaining are more limited than those granted to local government employees and those in private employment, but this is a landmark piece of legislation for the state of Nevada and its public employees. The law will finally grant rights to state employees that they have been fighting to obtain for decades.

3. Raising the Minimum Wage to $12 Per Hour

Nevada’s minimum wage for employees will rise to $12 per hour in the next five years. Currently our state’s minimum wage is $8.25 per hour for employers that don’t offer health insurance to their employees and is $7.25 per hour for those employers that do offer health insurance to their employees. Offering of health insurance under Nevada’s minimum wage requirements means almost nothing pursuant to MDC Restaurants, LLC v. Eighth Judicial District Court, which held there were no minimum requirements for the insurance or its coverage in order to qualify for the lower minimum wage amount. So, it could be a worthless and expensive plan and the employer gets to pay the lower wage. Though Senate Bill 192 attempts to change this law and places minimum coverage for the lower wage to apply.

Assembly Bill 456 will increase Nevada’s minimum wage by 75 cents starting on July 1, 2020. The minimum wage will then increase each year until 2024 when it reaches $12 per hour for those not offered health insurance, and $11 for those who are offered health insurance by their employer.

4. Revising Nevada’s Prevailing Wage Statutes

The 2015 Session of the Nevada Legislature saw several rollbacks in protections provided to workers on the state’s public works projects. One of those rollbacks was making prevailing wages for school construction projects only 90 percent of the then applicable prevailing wage rates. That Legislature also changed the threshold for application of prevailing wage statutes to only projects that were greater than $250,000. The 2015 Legislature also exempted all charter school construction from having to pay prevailing wage.

The 2019 Legislature reversed all three of these actions from the 2015 Legislature. Assembly Bill 136 reduces the threshold from $250,000 back to $100,000, requires charter schools to pay prevailing wages for construction, and removed the exemption that required school construction to be only 90% of the prevailing wage rate.

5. Drug Testing for Marijuana Not Permitted

Assembly Bill 132 makes it unlawful for an employer to refuse to hire a job applicant because the applicant was tested via blood, urine, hair, or oral fluids for drugs and the applicant’s test results showed the presence of cannabis in their system. Governor Sisolak signed this bill into law on June 5, 2019.

This bill is not as broad as it first seems though because there are a lot of exceptions and exemptions. The new law does not apply to applicants for firefighter or EMT positions, employment that will require the applicant to operate a vehicle and federal or state law requires the person to submit to drug tests, or to any employee whose employment “could adversely affect the safety of others.” AB 132 also does not apply if there is in place an employment contract or collective bargaining agreement with inconsistent provisions. In addition, if federal law is inconsistent or the position the applicant is applying for is funded by a federal grant, the employer is permitted to test for drugs and make a decision not to hire based on the presence of cannabis in the screening.

These are just five of the major changes made to Nevada’s employment and labor laws during the 2019 Legislative Session. I do not think these are the top five and are not listed in any specific order. In addition to these five changes, the Legislature made approximately a dozen other changes to employment laws that could have profound effects upon employees, employers, and independent contractors.

Disclaimer: This article merely provides legal information and does not provide legal advice. The article does not form and is not intended to form an attorney-client relationship between the author and any reader of the article. The only way to seek legal advice on your specific situation is by retaining an attorney.