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Governor Schwarzenegger recently signed A.B. 632, which bars a health care facility from discriminating or retaliating against patients, employees, facility medical staff, or other health care workers for filing a complaint or grievance, or initiating or participating in an investigation into the facility. Employees who are discriminated against in violation of the law will be […]
When a collective bargaining agreement expires, and the union and management haven’t negotiated a new one, an employer must maintain the status quo. This means the employer can’t impose unilateral changes on issues that are considered “mandatory subjects of bargaining,” until a new contract is negotiated or the parties have bargained to impasse. Applying this […]
Having a sexual harassment policy won’t do your company any good if the procedures are never implemented. Take the case of an employee who became the victim of severe steady sexual harassment from one of her managers. When she complained about the incidents to management, they simply shrugged it off. Since he made a lot […]
A bill that would give employees more time to file lawsuits challenging discriminatory pay practices has run into trouble in Congress. The federal Ledbetter Fair Pay Act of 2007 (H.R. 2831) was introduced last year to circumvent a controversial U.S. Supreme Court decision holding that the deadline for workers to file pay bias complaints is […]
By BLR Founder and CEO Bob Brady These days health care is all abuzz with the pending healthcare reform bill in the Senate. Meanwhile, companies are getting walloped by higher than expected costs just when they can least afford it. And you, as an HR professional, are on the front lines. Employers are understandably concerned […]
Under the wage orders, “to employ” means to “engage, suffer, or permit” someone to work for you. Sound confusing? It can be. The simplest approach is to assume that any person who does work for you that is part of your company’s business (who does some part of the work necessary to make the goods […]
An Orange County jury has awarded $1,350,000 to a real estate agent who claimed she was terminated because she complained she was being sexually harassed by a corporate vice president. And a Los Angeles jury has awarded $1,125,000 to a transit employee who claimed that she was sexually harassed by her supervisor and that the […]
For the first time since 1986, the U.S. Department of Labor has proposed new rules affecting the COBRA notice requirements. COBRA rules affect individuals’ rights to continue group health coverage under certain circumstances. For employers the consequences for not giving written notice in accordance with COBRA rules can be steep, including having to pay an […]
Undocumented workers who are injured on the job are entitled to seek workers’ compensation benefits, a California Court of Appeals has ruled.