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Wage and Hour: More Legal Woes for Wal-Mart

The U.S. Department of Labor has announced that Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. will pay over $33 million in back wages to resolve errors in calculating overtime for 86,680 employees nationwide. According to the DOL, Wal-Mart brought the problem to the agency’s attention after an internal audit raised concerns regarding overtime computations, particularly with respect to incentives […]

Age Bias: Ex-Google Director Gets Green Light to Sue

In a new case that highlights the growing tension between Silicon Valley’s hip, young atmosphere and older, experienced workers, an ex-Google director whom younger employees called “old fuddy duddy” and “sluggish” has been given the green light by a California appeals court to sue for age discrimination.

Consumer-Directed Health Plans Like HSAs/HRAs Continue to Grow

Does your computer’s spelling function auto-correct “HSA” to “HAS”? Mine used to, not recognizing that this abbreviation is no longer an error, but represents health savings accounts (HSAs), one type of consumer-directed health plan that is fast becoming mainstream in the health benefits industry. Health savings accounts couple a tax-favored savings account that is used […]

Unions: NLRB Says Employers Can Restrict Use of Company Email for Union Purposes

In an important development, the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) has ruled 3-2 that an employer didn’t violate federal labor relations law by maintaining a policy that barred employees from using the employer’s email system for union activities and other non-job-related solicitations. Join us this fall in San Francisco for the California Employment Law Update […]

Hiring: Can We Use Credit Checks in Evaluating Candidates?

We routinely do background checks on our final candidates for employment. Now we’ve got a finalist that we all really like, but the background check revealed a problem credit history. The job doesn’t involve money, but we’re wondering what the credit history might reveal about this person’s character. I want to ask the candidate about […]

E-mailed Pink Slips Create ‘Walking Negative Ads’

Survey says … more companies are using e-mail to deliver bad news. That’s going to result in a lot of disgruntled ex-employees forever spewing negative opinions about your company. U.S. workers may want to think twice before opening that e-mail from the boss—it might be a termination notice, says a recent poll conducted for the […]

California Unemployment: Unemployed Applicants Pose Dilemmas for HR

Employers have started hiring again and are often overwhelmed with huge numbers of resumes, even for entry-level positions. Some companies have decided that an effective way to identify the best candidates is to refuse to consider job applicants who are currently unemployed. But a number of human resources professionals, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), […]