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The 6th Circuit—which covers Kentucky, Michigan, Ohio, and Tennessee—recently ruled that an employee who was allegedly laid off while she was on leave covered by the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) was entitled to a jury trial because the employer’s lack of written policies left unresolved questions about her status. Read more.
Connecticut has become the third state to legalize same-sex civil marriages, which California and Massachusetts already recognize. The Connecticut Supreme Court ruled 4-3 to overturn a lower court ruling that denied same-sex couples the right to marry on the grounds that existing laws allowing civil unions afforded them sufficient rights. Gay and lesbian couples sought […]
According to the annual Performance and Accountability Report released in November, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) finished fiscal year 2011 with a 10 percent decrease in its pending-charge inventory, the first such reduction since 2002. At the same time, the agency achieved the highest-ever monetary amounts through administrative enforcement, and it received a record […]
Gary Ross was offered a job as a lead systems administrator for RagingWire Telecommunications in Sacramento. In connection with taking a mandatory pre-employment drug test, Ross gave the company a copy of his medical prescription for marijuana, which he used to alleviate pain from an old back injury. Ross also told RagingWire that he wouldn’t […]
On New Year’s Eve, just hours before the healthcare reform (also known as the Affordable Care Act or ACA) contraceptive mandate requirement was supposed to go into effect, Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor issued a stay and gave the federal government until Friday to respond to the Court. The stay applies to a limited group […]
The federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission announced that two Maryland food processing plants will pay a total of $1 million to settle a sexual harassment suit on behalf of 22 female workers, all Central American immigrants. Male managers and co-workers allegedly groped the women and demanded sexual favors, and one woman was locked in a […]
According to a new survey on education assistance plans, 94 percent of employers offer some type of education assistance to their employees, with 88 percent of these employers having a formal policy in place. Interestingly, most employees don’t take advantage of this valuable employee benefit: the survey found that 74 percent of employers offering education […]
By Steve Bruce, Editor, HR Daily Advisor Just My E-Pinion Our headline in a recent issue of HR Daily Advisor—"He’s back … in the lobby … with a gun"—was calculated to attract attention; that’s what headlines do. But not the kind of attention we attracted. A number of readers were upset by the headline and […]
A jury in Alameda County has slapped Wal-Mart with a $172 million verdict for denying employees legally required lunch breaks. The verdict came in after just three days of juror deliberation, following a four-month trial in the class-action lawsuit, which filed back in 2002 against the retail giant. Wal-Mart has said it plans to appeal.
Under California wage and hour law, computer software professionals can qualify for overtime exemption if they meet certain duties requirements and are paid a specified hourly rate, set annually based on inflation rates by the state Department of Industrial Relations. On Jan. 1, 2007, the minimum hourly rate for exempt computer software professionals will be […]