Practical HR Tips, News & Advice. Updated Daily.
In an important ruling for unionized employers, the National Labor Relations Board has overturned 50 years of precedent and changed the rules for employers who wish to withdraw recognition of a union that may have lost majority support. Under the old rule, an employer could withdraw recognition based on a good-faith belief that the union […]
The U.S. Supreme Court has agreed to resolve conflicting lower court decisions about whether people who are HIV-positive, but don’t have any AIDS symptoms, automatically qualify as disabled under the Americans with Disabilities Act. The case, which involved the part of the law dealing with discrimination in public accommodations, arose when a dentist refused to […]
The Labor Department’s Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs is proposing to end a requirement for visits to the worksites of federal contractors to make limited “compliance checks.” This type of review issued to see if the contractor has maintained proper records and has developed an affirmative action plan. To allow greater flexibility, contractors could […]
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.
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 […]
Employers may not have to adjust their qualified transportation fringe benefit programs after all — at least not just yet. A legislative provision that would have affected QTFBs by boosting the mass transit exclusion to the same level as that for qualified parking — the so-called “mass transit parity” provision — did not make it […]
Employers that pay advances, allowances or reimbursements to employees for work-related entertainment expenses — including taxpayers who, in turn, get reimbursed by their clients for such expenses — have until Oct. 30 to comment on a proposed regulation IRS published Aug. 1. The proposed rule clarifies who — among the employer, its client and an […]
Smaller businesses often don’t have the resources to create their own workplace policies, and often do without. The good news is that they no longer have to. A recent Daily Advisor article talked about the problems businesses have faced from the new practice of employee blogging. This writing of personal diaries on the Internet, for […]