Most Popular

Court Sees Through Illinois Costco Manager’s Retaliation Claim

By Kelly Smith-Haley, Fox, Swibel, Levin & Carroll LLP The Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) allows eligible employees to take unpaid job-protected leave for certain family and medical reasons. The FMLA also prohibits employers from retaliating against employees who exercise their rights under the Act. But employees have certain obligations to meet before being […]

Hot List: BusinessWeek’s Best Seller List

BusinessWeek magazine ranks the 10 best selling hardcover and paperback business books for October 2009 and gives a short summary. 1. The Accidental Billionaires: The Founding of Facebook A Tale of Sex, Money, Genius and Betrayal by Ben Mezrich. An unflattering portrait of Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg. 2. A Colossal Failure of Common Sense: The […]

onboarding

Companies’ Reduction in Employee Flexibility Is Misplaced

Companies vary greatly in their willingness to allow employees flexibility in their work, as well as in how that flexibility manifests itself—from working from home all the time, with unlimited paid time off (PTO), to flex work and the ability to work from home on certain days or on a certain number of days per […]

IRS Proposes Regulation on Local Lodging Expenses

Some business-related lodging expenses incurred in the vicinity of home will be deductible, if the IRS amends the rules under Code Section 162. The agency moved to do that in rules proposed on April 25. In general, the tax Code does not allow a deduction for expenses paid or incurred for lodging when not traveling away from home. […]

California Court Shows Proper Way to Calculate Overtime on Flat-Rate Bonus

By Cathleen S. Yonahara, JD A California employer followed a federal regulation for calculating overtime on a flat-rate bonus. An employee filed a lawsuit alleging that the calculation was improper and that the employer should have used the method for calculating flat-rate bonuses set forth in the California Division of Labor Standards Enforcement (DLSE) manual. On […]

6 steps to avoid crashing and burning like United Airlines

by Michael P. Maslanka Someday you may be the point person when your company has a PR nightmare. Let’s see what we can learn from the recent debacle in which a passenger was dragged off a United Airlines flight. Lesson #1: Measure twice, cut once Let’s start with the first of two apologies from United’s […]