Ben Briggs - Cotney Around the Globe

By Colin Sheehan, RCS Reporter. 

Everything you need to know about employment law and predictions for future changes within the legal side of construction. 

On Season 3, Episode 34 of Roofing Road Trips, Heidi J. Ellsworth chats with Ben Briggs of Cotney Attorneys & Consultants about changes in employment law. Ben currently leads the Cotney Labor and Employment initiatives and is at the forefront of employment issues including wage and hour, nonexempt and contractor status, OSHA, harassment issues and more.  

“All I do day in and day out all year round is employment law on behalf of construction companies, especially roofers,” said Ben. “A lot of our clients are roofers so I'm constantly dealing with roofing companies to help them get ahead of different employment issues." 

The legal employment problems that came about alongside COVID-19 have only added to the typical issues attorneys and consultants have been seeing for decades in the roofing industry. Temperature checks, wearing masks and asking employees health-related questions are among new additions to legal employment issues. 

"One of the main issues obviously are those COVID-19 precautions,” said Ben. “A year and a half ago, no one was wearing masks or having employees do temperature checks...but the target moves a little bit every week or every month on what those guidelines are. But again, a lot of COVID issues are just precautions. How can we keep our workplace safe? How can we ask certain questions without violating certain laws?” 

After the vaccine came out, the main question was whether employers could require employees to get vaccinated. Other related questions Ben and his team have been receiving include whether a contractor can require a subcontractor to have their employees take the vaccine or provide information about their vaccination status.  

“A lot of issues related to vaccines, which again are related in general to these COVID-19 precautions, trying to keep a healthy workplace, trying to make sure your contractors upstream and downstream are comfortable working with you, trying to make sure your customers are comfortable working with you knowing that you're not going to bring people to their property that might have the virus.” 

In addition to these precautions, COVID-19 has also complicated workers’ compensation and OSHA issues. For instance, if someone gets COVID-19, is that a reportable illness that needs to be included on a contractor’s OSHA log? What about workers’ comp claims that can be filed by the carrier?  

"A lot of these questions dealing with COVID-19 are beyond simply the precautions to prevent the virus,” said Ben. “But what do we do now if somebody's reporting it as far as OSHA goes or worker's comp goes?” 

Another element to the current employer/employee relationship deals with remote work. While some businesses are opening their offices again, a lot of people are still working remotely or working partly at the office or job site and partly at home.  

“There's a lot of different issues that come with workers working remotely, that again, adds an extra wrinkle to the employment dynamic,” said Ben. 

Listen to the entire podcast to learn more about what’s happening in employment law and what changes may be on the docket for the coming years.