Practical HR Tips, News & Advice. Updated Daily.
A federal jury in Baltimore has socked Federal Express Corporation with a $108,000 verdict for violating the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) by failing to provide a deaf employee with a reasonable accommodation.
The California Assembly has voted in favor of a landmark health care reform measure—A.B. x1 1, the Health Care Security and Cost Reduction Act—which is backed by Gov. Schwarzenegger. The bill now heads to the Senate for consideration. If approved there and signed by the governor, the bill would then go to voters in November […]
There is a lot of important new legislation affecting the workplace that Gov. Davis has signed into law. As the final hour for approving legislation approached, the governor vetoed bills to increase workers’ comp benefits, boost unemployment payments, expand leave for family and medical care, ban secret monitoring of employee e-mail and computer records, and […]
Many times, the easiest way to train managers about HR issues is to ask them to imagine themselves on the witness stand. When they realize what they will have to admit to, they learn fast.
The number one mistake I see is untrained supervisors responding negatively to employees’ requests for reasonable accommodation, says attorney Mark Schickman. They just say “no” without any interactive discussion.
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services recently published the first in a series of interim enforcement rules under the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act. The interim rule took effect May 19, 2003, and expires Sept. 16, 2003. It sets out procedures for conducting investigations and hearings and imposing civil penalties for violations […]
The Ninth Circuit has reversed a lower court’s dismissal of an Equal Employment Opportunity Commission lawsuit charging Pasadena-based law firm Reeves & Associates with sexual harassment and pregnancy discrimination. According to the appeals court, a jury could find that a hostile work environment was created because of founder Robert L. Reeves’ alleged sexual jokes, leering, […]
They work different hours. They speak a different language. And they’re motivated by different compensation considerations than the rest of your workforce.
On July 24, 2009, the federal minimum wage will increase to $7.25 per hour. The increase is the result of a May 2007 amendment to the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), which boosted the minimum wage in three steps. The first two steps — to $5.85 and then a year later to $6.55 — were […]