Posted by Meaghan Kirby in Connecticut Law, Law Basics, New Laws
Oct 1 2026
Connecticut’s 2026 legislative session brought several significant changes to the laws governing the workplace. A number of important new protections for employees have become effective as of October 1, 2026, with additional changes to follow in 2027. Below are three of the laws Connecticut employees should understand that they may affect workers and job applicants.
Public Act 26-12: Workforce Development and Working Conditions (Effective October 1, 2026)
Public Act 26-12, enacted as H.B. 5003, is a broad workforce law containing a number of new protections for Connecticut employees and job applicants. Many of its employment-related provisions took effect on October 1, 2026.
Pay Transparency: Beginning October 1, 2026, Connecticut employers must include the wage or wage range for a position, as well as a general description of the benefits offered, in public and internal job advertisements. “Benefits” include health insurance, retirement benefits, fringe benefits, paid leave, and other compensation offered with the position. Employers must set wage ranges in good faith.
The law also expands the information that employers must provide to applicants and employees. If wage and benefits information was not already included in a job advertisement, an applicant must receive it upon request or before the employer discusses or offers compensation. Employees must similarly receive wage-range and benefits information when they are hired, change positions, or first request that information. The law also expressly prohibits employers from retaliating or discriminating against applicants or employees for exercising their rights under Connecticut’s wage-disclosure law.
Employees should be aware, however, that the Act also changes the remedies available for violations of the wage-disclosure law. While employees and applicants may continue to seek compensatory damages, attorneys’ fees and costs, and other legal and equitable relief, the Act removes punitive damages as an available remedy.
Disability Accommodation Notices: Employers must provide employees with written notice of their right to reasonable workplace accommodations for disabilities under the Americans with Disabilities Act. New employees must receive the notice when they begin employment; existing employees must receive it within 120 days after October 1, 2026; and an employee who informs an employer of a disability must receive the notice within ten days of when they informed their employer. Employers may satisfy this requirement by displaying the notice prepared by the Connecticut Department of Labor in a workplace location that is easy to see.
Lactation Protections: Connecticut law already protects an employee’s right to express breast milk or breastfeed at work – but H.B. 5003 expands that protection. Now, employers are required to provide reasonable break time for breastfeeding or expressing breast milk in addition to an employee’s regularly scheduled breaks, rather than requiring employees to use their existing meal or rest periods for that purpose.
Restrictions on “Stay-or-Pay” Agreements: Connecticut law generally prohibits employers from requiring an employee, as a condition of employment, to sign “employment promissory notes,” or agreements that require the employee to repay their employer if the employee leaves their employment before a specified time period (i.e., one year, five years, etc.). These agreements can include provisions requiring an employee to reimburse the employer for training costs.
Previously, this prohibition applied only to employers with at least 26 employees. As of October 1, 2026, it applies to employers of any size – for covered agreements executed on or after that date.
The prohibition does not invalidate every agreement requiring an employee to repay money to an employer. Exceptions remain for certain arrangements, like agreements requiring repayment of money actually advanced to an employee, payment for property sold or leased to the employee, certain sabbatical arrangements for educational personnel, and programs established through collective bargaining.
Additional Worker Protections: The law also makes changes that affect workers in several other areas. Among other provisions, it enhances compensation protections for certain employees who are unable to work after being assaulted on the job, establishes new protections for certain service workers when a service contract changes hands, and imposes joint liability on certain construction contractors for wages left unpaid by subcontractors under qualifying contracts beginning January 1, 2027.
Public Act 26-73: Electronic Surveillance of Employees (Effective October 1, 2026)
Connecticut already requires employers that electronically monitor employees to provide notice of that monitoring, but Public Act 26-73 makes that notice more specific. As of October 1, 2026, employers generally must identify the specific workplace locations where electronic monitoring may occur and post the notice in those locations. Employees hired on or after October 1 must also receive, before beginning work, a plain-language written statement identifying prohibited activities that could be monitored without advance notice. Employers may still conduct monitoring without prior notice when they have reasonable grounds to believe employees are engaged in unlawful conduct, conduct violating legal rights, or conduct creating a hostile work environment, and where monitoring may produce evidence of that misconduct; certain security-related monitoring is also exempt from the new location-disclosure requirement. For employees, the law provides greater transparency about where and under what circumstances workplace surveillance may occur, allowing workers to better understand the scope of monitoring in their workplace.
Public Act 26-15: Connecticut’s New Artificial Intelligence Law (Effective Beginning October 1, 2026)
Public Act 26-15, Connecticut’s new law regulating artificial intelligence, includes several provisions directed specifically at the workplace. As of October 1, 2026, employers filing notices of covered mass layoffs or plant closings under the federal WARN Act must tell the Connecticut Department of Labor whether the layoffs are related to the employer’s use of AI or another technological change. The law also makes clear that an employer cannot avoid liability for employment discrimination simply because a discriminatory decision resulted from an automated employment decision tool; evidence that an employer conducted meaningful anti-bias testing may, however, be considered.
Additional employee protections take effect October 1, 2027. Employers using automated, employment-related decision technology must provide employees and applicants with disclosures when the technology is used to interact with them and, when it is a substantial factor in an employment decision, provide information about the tool and the personal data it analyzes before the covered employment action occurs. For employees and job applicants, the law represents an important move toward transparency: decisions about hiring, promotion, discipline, discharge, training, and other terms of employment increasingly may involve algorithms, but employers cannot simply treat the workings of those systems as a black box or use “the algorithm did it” as a defense to discrimination.
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Taken together, these laws expand Connecticut workers’ rights in areas ranging from pay and accommodations to workplace surveillance and artificial intelligence. As technology and employment practices continue to evolve, Connecticut law is increasingly requiring employers not only to comply with substantive workplace protections, but also to give employees greater information about the decisions and practices that affect their working lives.
Posted by Meaghan Kirby in Connecticut Law, Law Basics, New Laws
Tagged Meaghan Kirby
