JULY EDITION
Your Compliance Questions, Answered
By Christina Everling, GovDocs Attorney
Employment Law and Compliance
July 28, 2026
Each month, GovDocs’ Employment Law & Compliance Team answers the most common employment law questions employers are facing. This edition covers Virginia’s expanded nondiscrimination protections under S.B. 637, Maine’s new pay transparency law, and how employers determine which languages their labor law posters need to be in.
Staying compliant in today’s rapidly evolving employment law landscape often raises more questions than answers. Each month, Christina Everling, GovDocs’ Attorney on the Employment Law & Compliance Team, tackles the most asked employment law compliance questions by employers across the country.
How Has Virginia’s S.B. 637 Impacted Nondiscrimination in Employment?
Virginia’s S.B. 637 Amends the VHRA
Senate Bill 637, expanding the Virginia Human Rights Act (VHRA), went into effect on July 1, 2026. These amendments lowered the size threshold for covered employers and extended the deadline for filing complaints.
New Employer Size Threshold Under the VHRA
The VHRA now applies to employers with at least five employees. Whereas the previous threshold was at least 15 employees in most circumstances, and five to 20 employees for claims involving age-related unlawful discharge, S.B. 637 created a uniform size threshold regardless of claim.
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Employer size is determined by the number of employees for each working day in each of 20 or more calendar weeks in the current or preceding calendar year.
What the VHRA’s Nondiscrimination Provisions Cover
The nondiscrimination provisions related to employment in the VHRA prohibit employers from discriminating against employees based on race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, marital status, pregnancy/childbirth/lactation, age, military status, disability, or ethnic/national origin. This prohibition applies to practices including hiring, discharging, compensation, referrals, and training or apprenticeship opportunities.
Extended Deadline for Filing a Complaint
In addition to redefining “employer,” S.B. 637 also extended the deadline for filing a complaint of unlawful discriminatory practice from 300 days to two years after the alleged practice occurred.
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How Do Employers Comply with Maine’s New Pay Transparency Law?
Maine’s LD 54 Pay Transparency Requirements
Maine’s new pay transparency law, LD 54, goes into effect on July 29, 2026. LD 54 requires that employers with at least 10 employees disclose the prospective range of pay in all job postings. If compensation for the position is based solely on commission, the job posting must disclose that information in lieu of a range of pay.
The “range of pay” required is the pay range an employer expects to rely on in setting the wages for a particular position. It excludes commission-only compensation but may reference:
- Any applicable pay scale
- A pre-established pay range for the role
- The current pay range of employees in comparable positions
- The budgeted amount for the role
In addition to disclosures in job postings, if an employee requests the range of pay for the employee’s current position, the employer must provide it.
LD 54 also imposes a recordkeeping requirement: employers must keep a record of each position held by an employee and that employee’s pay history in each position. This record must be maintained for the duration of employment plus three years.
How LD 54 Relates to Maine’s Salary History Ban
Pay transparency laws often – but not always – go hand-in-hand with salary history ban laws. For example, Maine’s salary history ban law has been in effect since 2019. Under this law, employers are precluded from inquiring about a prospective employee’s wage and salary history unless the individual voluntarily discloses such information, or an employment offer including all terms of compensation has been made to the applicant.
How to Track Pay Transparency Compliance Across Jurisdictions
Employers can stay informed of pay transparency and salary history ban requirements and changes in the jurisdictions where they operate with GovDocs’ Minimum Wage Solution, which tracks and manages pay transparency laws across the United States and Canada.
What Language Does Your Labor Law Poster Need to Be In?
The Linguistic Diversity of the U.S. Workforce
The United States is one of the most linguistically diverse countries in the world with over 350 languages spoken. According to recent data released by the U.S. Census Bureau, approximately 22% of people speak a language other than English at home, most commonly Spanish, at 62%.
Why Spanish-Language Posting Requirements Are Most Common
In the workplace, many jurisdictions recognize that employees may not be able to understand important information posted only in English. Because Spanish is the language most often spoken at home after English, it is also the language those jurisdictions require most often. In fact, there are over 50 Spanish-language postings across 17 state and local jurisdictions that all employers are required to display.
For example, Connecticut’s paid sick leave law includes a provision requiring employers to “display[] a poster in a conspicuous place, accessible to employees, at the employer’s place of business that contains the information required by this section in both English and Spanish…” To help employers meet requirements like these, GovDocs maintains over 600 active Spanish postings in its offerings.
Beyond Spanish: Other Foreign-Language Posting Requirements
But foreign-language labor law posting requirements don’t stop at Spanish. While some legal provisions specify the languages to be posted, others set thresholds that trigger additional languages. Below are samples of the wide variety of language requirements:
- Los Angeles, CA Fair Workweek Ordinance
“Every Employer shall post notices in English, Spanish, Chinese (Cantonese and Mandarin), Hindi, Vietnamese, Tagalog, Korean, Japanese, Thai, Armenian, Russian and Farsi, and any other language spoken by at least 5 percent of the Employees at the workplace or job site.” - Nebraska Healthy Families and Workplaces Act
“The poster displayed shall be in: (a) English; and (b) Any language that is the first language spoken by at least five percent of the employer’s workforce if the department has provided posters in such language.” - New Mexico Healthy Workplaces Act (Paid Sick Leave)
“The poster displayed should be in English, Spanish and any language that is the first language spoken by at least ten percent of the employer’s workforce.” - New Jersey Whistleblower Act
“Each notice posted or distributed pursuant to this section shall be in English, Spanish and at the employer’s discretion, any other language spoken by the majority of the employer’s employees.” - Fremont, CA Minimum Wage Ordinance
“Every employer shall post such notices in the top five languages spoken in the city based on the latest available census information for the city at the workplace or job site.” - Maine Paid Family and Medical Leave Act
“The employer shall post the workplace notice in English and each language other than English that is the primary language of 3 or more employees of that workplace, if such notice is available from the department.”
How GovDocs Supports Multi-Language Poster Compliance
As you can see, the language of a posting isn’t always explicitly stated, and for multi-jurisdiction employers, there is no uniform test to determine what posting languages are required for compliance. GovDocs’ Labor Law Poster Program includes over 180 foreign-language postings as part of its Standard Update Service. Outside of Standard Update Service, GovDocs offers more than 130 active postings in languages other than English and Spanish, covering over 25 languages from Amharic to Lao to Vietnamese.
Need a posting in a foreign language? Upon customer request, GovDocs will verify the availability of the posting from the issuing agency and add it to our offerings.
