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News Flash: Sexual Harassment

Vanessa Bailey, a gardener at Balboa Park in Encino, complained that she was sexually harassed by her co-workers. Bailey claimed, among other things, that while she was in a city truck, a co-worker exposed himself to her and another had magazines showing naked women. Bailey also said that a park supervisor kissed her against her […]

Legislation Special Report: Workers’ Compensation

Delay Penalties and Utilization Review AB 1557 provides that an employee isn’t entitled to the usual 10 percent increase in workers’ compensation benefits for an unreasonable delay in providing medical treatment if the delay was necessary to complete the new utilization review process required of employers by the workers’ comp reform legislation (see below).

What Will 2012’s Biggest Wage-Related Issue Be?

“Paying to market” and “Four years of freezes” are the biggest issues for many respondents to a recent survey conducted by the HRhero division of BLR last December. Other responses to the question, What do you think your organization’s biggest wage-related issue will be at the end of 2012? included: A sad one: “We’re just […]

News Notes: New Wage Order For Construction And Related Industries

The Industrial Welfare Commission has issued a new wage order covering the construction, drilling, logging and mining industries. This is the first time these industries have been regulated by a special wage order comprehensively governing wages, hours and working conditions. The new wage order covers, among other things, minimum wage and overtime rules, alternative workweek […]

Short Takes: Dress Codes

Our dress code says females working in the office cannot wear pants. One of our ladies says that in California, women have a “right to wear pants.” Is this true?

Is AI Recruiting Discrimination Inevitable?

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 […]

California Supreme Court Focuses on Wage and Hour Issues

Already set to decide the troublesome meal period issue (whether employers must “ensure” or “provide” employee meal periods) in Brinker Restaurant Corp. v. Superior Court and Brinkley v. Public Storage, Inc., the California Supreme Court has just agreed to review two other cases involving wage and hour issues.

Supreme Court Upholds Healthcare Reform Law

Reporting by Kyle Emshwiller and Jessica Webb-Ayer The wait is over: The U.S. Supreme Court has decided that the massive healthcare reform law (also known as the Affordable Care Act, or ACA) enacted in March 2010 is constitutional. So what happened, and what does this mean for employers? The wait is over: The U.S. Supreme […]