One issue to watch: he U.S. SupremeCourt is poised to consider whether Title VII of the Civil RightsAct should be extended to protect against discrimination based onsexual orientation and gender identity.

Some of the biggest labor and employment headlines lastyear highlighted LGBT rights in the workplace,forced-arbitration provisions, sexual harassment scandals and stalled federalnominees. These issues and more are in play in 2019.

Progressive states, includingCalifornia and New York, last year showed no sign of slowing downto take up measures boosting workplace protections, adding to thepatchwork of state and local laws surrounding gender equality, harassment and paid sickleave.

Related: 10 regulatory issues employers need to watch thisyear

Many of these and other themeswill continue into next year, and could build momentum. We roundedup some of the issues to watch.

LGBT workplace rights in dispute

The U.S. Supreme Court is poisedto consider whether Title VII of the Civil Rights Act should beextended to protect against discrimination based on sexualorientation and gender identity. Three cases at the high court teeup the issues—and the cases have been scheduled, and rescheduled,several times for the justices' private conference. We could soonlearn whether the justices take up these issues thisterm.

The Trump-era U.S. JusticeDepartment has urged courts not to extend protections, clashingwith the position of the U.S. Equal Employment OpportunityCommission, which has advocated for broad protections.

“The sole question here iswhether, as a matter of law, Title VII reaches sexual orientationdiscrimination. It does not, as has been settled for decades. Anyefforts to amend Title VII's scope should be directed to Congressrather than the courts,” the Justice Department said in a briefin the Second Circuit lastyear.

Many large employers have beenmoving toward equality, filing friend of the court briefsthat back greater employee rights against bias. Two cases at thehigh court—Altitude Express v. Zarda, and Bostock v.Clayton County—consider protections for sexual orientation.The third case, R.G. and G.R. Harris Funeral Home v. EEOCconfronts protections for transgender employees. The cases would beconsidered at a high court that, of course, no longerincludes Justice Anthony Kennedy, whose rulings for same-sexequality have been championed by rights advocates.

What will happen at the EEOC?

As of January, the five-memberEEOC was down to two commissioners, meaning it lacked aquorum and would be prohibited from pursuing certainmatters. Daniel Gade, a Trump nominee to the EEOC, withdrew his nominationlate last year to take a postteaching public policy at American University this year. AnotherTrump nominee, Janet Dhillon, was still awaiting confirmation inthe previous Congress, and the Senate had not confirmed theadministration's pick for EEOC general counsel, Sharon Gustafson,who would play a key role in big-ticket litigation. Indeed,the EEOC was bracingfor at least a short period, orlonger, without a full slate of commissioners.

“This means the potential of ashutdown of significant litigation,” said former EEOC generalcounsel David Lopez, now co-dean of Rutgers Law School. “The bigcases, cases where there is a policy change.” The commission lastyear faced litigation over new workplace wellness rules and adispute over an Obama-era pay-data initiative.

Joint employer—even messier than before

The rule-making process is movingforward at the National Labor Relations Board to determine whatstandards should be used to determine when companies, franchisesand contractors should be considered joint employers. The NLRB hasreceived thousands of comments about a proposal that would adopt amore business-friendly approach. The NLRB general counsel, PeterRobb, recently weighed in, saying the proposal doesn't go farenough.

The landscape just got a lot moremuddy—at least in the eyes of a dissenting judge on the U.S. Courtof Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. The appeals court, divided2-1, on Dec. 28 largely upheldthe Obama-era NLRB's joint-employerstandard, even as the board weighs adopting a morebusiness-friendly approach.

Writing in dissent, Judge A.Raymond Randolph said the panel should have let the NLRBadministrative process play out. “Yet the majority opinion—withoutany reasonable explanation—threatens to short-circuit the board'schoice, to control and confine the scope of its rulemaking, and toinfluence the outcome of that proceeding,” Randolph wrote. Headded: “Our court should not be attempting to preempt the board'sforthcoming judgment in the rulemaking proceeding.”

Tension mounts over mandatory arbitration

Plaintiffs lawyershave begun going to courtto force gig economy companies suchas Uber and Lyft to agree to pay the costs of arbitration. Atstake? Millions of dollars in fees which the companies had agreedto pay, based on the terms of arbitrationprovisions. According to new lawsuits, thecompanies, have not paid certain filing fees, andthousands of arbitration cases havestalled.

“For employers, this might say,'Be careful what you ask for and you might get it,'” saidplaintiffs lawyer Joseph Sellers of Cohen Milstein Sellers &Toll. “This could force Uber to reckon with the consequences of thearbitration clause, which means very substantial costs.”

Meanwhile, we're watching thefallout from the Supreme Court's Epic Systems ruling fromthe past term. One Pennsylvania judge recently raised his broadconcerns about the fairness of arbitration. “Even if individualarbitrators adhere to high standards, we ignore reality if weforget that private arbitration services are profit-makingenterprises that advertise and compete for business,” U.S. DistrictJudge Gerald McHugh Jr. wrote.

Automation in focus

Automation has become moreubiquitous in the workplace as employers adopt artificialintelligence tools for greater efficiency. Regulators, advocatesand lawmakers are speaking out more on the potential dangers ofstreamlined, algorithm-driven processes. Democratic lawmakers andworkers' rights advocates are pointing to ways that automationtools could lead to discriminatory practices.

A recent surveyby the management-side firm LittlerMendelson found hiring and recruiting account for the most commonuses of data analytics and artificial intelligence. Nearly half ofthe employers surveyed said they use some kind of advanced datatechniques to grow their workforce. This is an emerging issue onmany fronts and has caught the attention of the EEOC and Democraticlawmakers. This includes biometric privacy data, facial recognitionsoftware and resume-scraping tools aimed at reducing the workloadat big companies. Litigation is expected to pick up.

Read more:

• Paid sick leave: A legislativeupdate
• Take proactive steps to avoid LGBT discriminationlawsuits
• NLRB adopts business-friendly independentcontractor test