Practical HR Tips, News & Advice. Updated Daily.
Last month we reported on legislative action under way in Sacramento. In this issue, we give you a similar heads up on key employment-related legislation, on the table in the nation’s capitol, that could also impact your workplace.
Most employers know they can wind up with a bias lawsuit on their hands if they’re not careful about the language they use when placing a help-wanted ad in the newspaper or online. Here’s a quick checklist you can use to evaluate your ad to help ensure it won’t be a ticking time bomb. A […]
The U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeal has upheld the City of Berkeley’s living wage law in the face of a challenge to its constitutionality.1Berkeley’s law, enacted in 2000, requires certain city contractors and lessees to pay workers a minimum hourly wage a few dollars higher than state and federal minimums, plus health benefits. […]
The federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) recently released industry-specific guidelines for preventing musculoskeletal disorders in grocery stores. These voluntary guidelines contain practical recommendations to help grocery store employers and employees reduce the number and severity of ergonomic injuries. OSHA says employers in other industries for which guidelines have not been developed may find […]
A California appeal court has ruled that for purposes of determining whether an employer is liable for an employee’s occupational disease or cumulative trauma injury, the date of injury is when the employee first suffered either temporary or permanent disability—not when medical treatment was received. The ruling is important because, with work-related disease or cumulative […]
Video game retailer Electronics Boutique of America has agreed to pay $950,000 to settle a lawsuit filed in a Los Angeles court charging the company misclassified managers in the retailer’s California stores as exempt from overtime. The lawsuit charged that managers regularly worked overtime without additional pay and spent more than 50 percent of their […]
Charles Sinatra, a long-time assistant principal with the Chico Unified School District, sued for wrongful termination in violation of public policy when the district refused his request for transfer to a part-time administrative position, instead giving him a full-time teaching assignment. He claimed he was “forced” to quit for exercising his statutory right under […]
We are pleased to welcome Lloyd W. Aubry, Jr., the newest member of our Editorial Review Board. Mr. Aubry, of counsel in the San Francisco office of Morrison & Foerster, has served as director of the California Department of Industrial Relations and as the State Labor Commissioner. In this position he headed the Division of […]
Proposed revisions to Family and Medical Leave Act regulations will not be issued until March 2005, according to the latest regulatory agenda from the Department of Labor. Originally, the Bush administration announced it planned to unveil the revisions in January 2003. The changes to the 1993 leave law have lagged as the DOL repeatedly extended […]
Morgan Stanley has agreed to pay $54 million to settle a class-action lawsuit accusing the banking firm of sex discrimination. The suit was brought in 2001 by the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and charged that Morgan Stanley discriminated against women in its Institutional Equity division with respect to promotions, compensation, and other terms and […]