News & Commentary January 30, 2023

[Omaha Steve]

Chinmay G. Pandit

Chinmay G. Pandit is a student at Harvard Law School.

In this edition of Tech@Work: Illinois’s highest court considers whether federal collective bargaining law preempts BIPA; the EEOC publishes a new plan to enforce nondiscrimination laws against AI hiring technology; and working professionals discover the wonders — and dangers — of ChatGPT.

Illinois’s Highest Court Considers Federal Preemption of BIPA

In January, the Illinois Supreme Court heard oral arguments in the case of Walton v. Roosevelt University to consider whether federal collective bargaining law preempts state biometric privacy claims. William Walton, a former safety department employee at Roosevelt University, filed a lawsuit alleging that the university violated Illinois’ Biometric Information Privacy Act (BIPA) by collecting and storing Walton’s handprint data through its daily employee clock-in-clock-out system without following the statutorily-mandated notice and consent procedures. BIPA, which has been at the center of a wave of litigation in recent years, lays out strict notice, disclosure, and disposal requirements for employers collecting employees’ biometric information such as hand-, finger-, and voiceprints. The statute also provides aggrieved workers with a private right of action to sue violating employers.

Roosevelt University initially moved to dismiss the claim, arguing that Walton was disqualified from asserting an individual BIPA claim under the Labor Management Relations Act (LMRA) due to his membership in a collective bargaining unit. Though the trial court denied Roosevelt’s motion, the appellate court subsequently reversed, holding that, under the LMRA, union members waive their individual bargaining rights to change employer timekeeping procedures, even when those procedures encompass biometric data collection. Any effort to renegotiate the timekeeping system, the school argued, must be led by Service Employees International Union Local 1, Walton’s exclusive bargaining agent.

In oral arguments, the Illinois Supreme Court justices examined the relationship between federal collective bargaining law and BIPA, asking the parties whether the bargaining agreements expressly obviated BIPA claims and whether the existence of federal collective bargaining law absolves employers of their duty to comply with state law. The court’s decision will both shape and clarify the limits of state BIPA claims, which have expanded in scope over the past half-decade.

FULL story: https://onlabor.org/techwork-january-29-2023/