Tennessee employers may now allow handguns on their property under a bill, S.B. 519, signed into law by Governor Bill Haslam on March 31, 2011. The law specifies that an employer's decision to permit handguns at work does not constitute an occupational safety and health hazard for Tennessee employees. Tennessee law already allowed employers to permit employees to possess weapons on their property. See Tenn. Code Section 39-17-1359. This measure clarifies that employers who permit employees to carry weapons on their property do not, by that act, create an unsafe workplace. While an administrative law judge recently ruled against an employee who raised such a claim, the Tennessee Occupational Safety and Health Administration had responded to that ruling by announcing that such decisions would be made on a case-by-case basis.

The text of the new law may be accessed here.

If you have questions about the new handgun law, please feel free to reach out to any of our nearly 70 Labor & Employment attorneys located in Birmingham, Alabama; Atlanta, Georgia; Baton Rouge, Mandeville and New Orleans, Louisiana; Jackson, Mississippi; and Chattanooga, Johnson City, Knoxville, Memphis and Nashville, Tennessee.