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The U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) has published final regulations that implement changes to some teen worker employment rules. Effective Feb. 15, the rules expand protections for minors working in certain industries and performing certain tasks. Note that California’s child labor rules generally incorporate the federal regulations.
Each year, HR Hero surveys readers about your organizations’ benefits packages. Because 2010’s health care reform laws created sweeping changes in how businesses offer health insurance to workers, this year our January survey focused only on health insurance and health care reform. According to the survey, an overwhelming majority (96.46%) of you work for organizations […]
In the latest example of the trend toward challenging the use of temporary workers by government and private employers, Ventura County’s largest labor union, the Service Employees International Union, has sued the county. The union charges that the county paid hundreds of thousands of dollars in the past year to temporary workers in clerical, maintenance […]
Late Tuesday night, President Barack Obama signed the Temporary Extension Act of 2010 (H.R. 4691) into law. The bill, which passed the U.S. Senate by a 78-19 vote Tuesday night and passed the U.S. House of Representatives last week, extends the original federal COBRA subsidy created by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 […]
In yesterday’s post, we discussed the idea that using artificial intelligence (AI) or big data in the recruiting process doesn’t eliminate problems with discrimination and bias. Perhaps counter-intuitively, these methods can actually emphasize bias if we’re not careful because the machine doesn’t know any better. It can only assess the (often imperfect) traits it is told to […]
M. Lee Smith Publishers’ President Dan Oswald comments on the generational divide that most companies are experiencing in relation to technology and offers five tips for how employers can harness the know-how and insight of their younger employees. I recently handed a newspaper column written by Financial Times columnist Luke Johnson to my 18-year old […]
When Municipal Resource Consultants (MRC) tried to compel former employee Nicholas O’Hare to arbitrate a wrongful discharge and age-bias lawsuit, O’Hare contended the mandatory arbitration provision he signed wasn’t fair. The agreement required him to arbitrate all claims against the company, while it permitted MRC to file a lawsuit against him for injunctive relief. A […]
The federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission has filed several new lawsuits arising out of post-9/11 backlash in the workplace. In one case, the agency has sued Alamo Rental Car on behalf of a Muslim employee who was denied a workplace accommodation to wear a headscarf during the holy month of Ramadan in December 2001. Another […]