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In the latest in a series of facts sheets focusing on specific disabilities, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) provides guidance on how the Americans with Disabilities Act applies to applicants and employees who are deaf or hearing impaired. This is an important focus for employers, given that there are between 28.6 and 31.5 million […]
February 2011 saw the nation’s unemployment rate drop to 8.9 percent, the lowest in almost two years. Employers added 192,000 jobs last month and made significant gains in payroll. Although economists predicted a strong February report, the gains were still above market expectations. The job growth represented the biggest monthly jump since May of 2010. […]
A federal judge has ordered The Chinese Daily News, one of the Los Angeles area’s largest Chinese-language newspapers, to pay $5.19 million in a class action lawsuit that charged the paper refused to pay overtime and denied meal and rest breaks. Former employee Lynne Wang alleged that the paper required reporters to write five stories […]
A California Court of Appeal has ruled that Beverly Hospital in Montebello didn’t violate the state family leave law by terminating a physical therapist who missed work to help her seriously ill mother move to a new apartment. Marjorie Pang claimed her time off was protected because she was providing psychological care for a […]
First Union Corp. has agreed to pay a whopping $26 million to current and former employees to settle two lawsuits accusing the bank of forcing workers to invest their 401(k) retirement savings in poorly performing mutual funds. The employees charged that First Union included second-rate investment funds in its in-house 401(k) plan and then used […]
In an effort to keep workers’ compensation reform from becoming bogged down, all bills have been moved into a bicameral conference committee. With a number of bills pending it remains to be seen whether this move will facilitate negotiations and whether any significant reform will result.
At the 11th hour, a joint committee of the state Assembly passed a bill that is intended to reign in the increasing costs of workers’ compensation. Although it remains to be seen whether the measure will achieve the projected up-front savings of $5.3 billion and annual savings of about $5 billion, the changes are far-reaching […]
Although the workers’ compensation system is designed to provide protection for injured employees, employers can obtain workers’ comp coverage for independent contractors under certain circumstances. Now a California appeal court has ruled that providing them with coverage will subject both the employer and the contractor to other workers’ comp law provisions—including the prohibition on […]