Practical HR Tips, News & Advice. Updated Daily.
A jury has handed down a $3.8 million verdict in favor of a hotel manager who complained of race discrimination, thanks to the employer’s overly aggressive reply to the worker’s lawsuit. Rabah Khatib sued his employer, Tower Corp., claiming that he was harassed and discriminated against because he is Arab-American. He also charged that his […]
Beginning Jan. 1, 2001, you’re required to report independent contractor earnings information to the Employment Development Department. The new law is designed to track down parents who are delinquent in paying child support. Private and public employers need to report payments made to independent contractors if you expect to pay at least $600 to the […]
Employers that retaliate against employees for reporting violations of certain health reform requirements could be subject to government investigations and hearings, as well as damages that include back pay awards and compensatory damages, under interim final rules issued Feb. 22 by the U.S. Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration. The rules flesh out […]
–Have the employee recertify the condition as often as you can, in many cases, as often as every 30 days. This is at the worker’s expense and has proved a strong deterrent to bogus leave claims. Go to Tip Five
Allowing an employee to sit for half of her shift, thereby eliminating several job duties, is “per se” unreasonable, the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Georgia has found. The case, EEOC v. Eckerd Corp. (d/b/a Rite Aid) (No. 1:10-CV-2816-JEC (N.D. Ga., July 9, 2012)), involved Fern Strickland, a drugstore cashier with osteoarthritis […]
By NANCY McDERMOTT Texas’ new “Open Carry” law, which allows licensed holders to carry a holstered gun in plain view, raises serious concerns for Texas employers. The “Open Carry” bill (HB 910), was signed into law in June 2015 by Gov. Greg Abbott (R) and took effect on Jan. 1. Current Law vs. New Law Under […]
The HITECH Act is now here in full. The whole litany of tighter privacy and security requirements is in the long-awaited, long-delayed “omnibus” rules finalized Jan. 17 by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, and most of these will have to be met by this Sept. 23. The omnibus rules also include changes […]
Today the Labor Department extended the comment period for proposed changes to the Fair Labor Standards exemption for domestic caregivers. To date the agency has already received a flood of comments on the proposed regulation which would remove domestic caregivers from the Fair Labor Standards Act’s current exemption from minimum wage and overtime pay. Currently, the FLSA provides […]
By Jane Meacham The U.S. Department of Labor on July 30 quickly revised its field assistance bulletin on retirement plan fee disclosures to clarify a contested question’s impact on so-called brokerage windows and self-directed accounts, which allow plan participants to select investments beyond those designated by an employer-sponsored plan. In the clarification, a new question […]