Practical HR Tips, News & Advice. Updated Daily.
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 […]
Statistics from the U.S. Department of Labor estimate that almost 70% of employers aren’t in compliance with the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA)—a percentage that almost certainly increases when similar violations under state law are taken into account. The federal Department of Labor is tackling this problem in a big way, dedicating a staggering $25 […]
Get ready now for an aggressive NLRB; meanwhile, get your ADA house in order, say panelists at BLR’s Advanced Employment Issues Symposium (AEIS). Good news? It’s not too late to act.
Farmers Insurance Exchange has been ordered to pay $90 million to 2,400 adjusters who claimed they were misclassified as exempt administrative employees and cheated out of years of overtime pay. The record-breaking award by an Alameda County jury could ultimately top $130 million with interest and attorneys’ fees. The adjusters, who make an average of […]
Provisions in an employment contract between Western & Southern Life Insurance Co. and its sales agents stated that agents had only six months from the date of discharge to file a lawsuit for wrongful termination, even though California law may provide up to four years to sue for breach of contract. The employment agreement also […]
Russell Crawford, the former owner of Valley Building Materials in Canoga Park, was ordered to spend six months in jail plus 10 months of home confinement for embezzling more than $700,000 from employee pension plans. Following a joint investigation by the U.S. Department of Labor and the FBI, Crawford reportedly admitted draining the company’s profit […]
Tyson Foods has agreed to change its religious accommodation policies to settle Equal Employment Opportunity Commission charges that the Arkansas poultry processor discriminated against a worker who watched Sunday church services on television. Tyson fired Afton Bolen from his job as a fryer operator for refusing to come in on Sundays, despite its policy of […]
I have a question about sexual harassment training. We have 35 full-time regular employees and usually about 40 or 50 temporaries. The temps work for months at a time, but we release them during slow periods. I think the law says you have to provide harassment training if you have 50 or more employees. Do we […]
On April 30, the Department of Homeland Security distributed its Worksite Enforcement Strategy describing how it plans to step up its efforts to enforce immigration laws. The new strategy focuses on reducing the demand for illegal employment by targeting employers that knowingly hire illegal workers as well as the workers themselves. Last week, updated guidance […]
Smoking by Public Employees Under existing law, neither employees nor members of the public may smoke inside a state-owned or state-occupied building, or a state-leased and state-occupied building, or within five feet of the main exit or entrance of these buildings, or in a state-owned passenger vehicle.