Tag: Employment law

DOL: New Overtime Rules Expected This Spring

The U.S. Department of Labor will likely propose changes to its overtime regulations this spring, Secretary of Labor Thomas E. Perez told lawmakers March 18. President Obama last March instructed DOL to simplify its rules and raise its salary threshold defining which workers are exempt from overtime. To be considered exempt from the minimum wage […]

Blacklisting

One of my colleagues did an evil thing last month: He encouraged me to give NBC’s The Blacklist a try. Ever since, I’ve been hooked on James Spader’s character, Raymond “Red” Reddington. Without spoiling anything for the uninitiated, Red is a fixture on the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted List, a supremely enterprising international underworld mercenary, […]

EEOC quietly moves forward with plans to collect compensation data

by Leslie Silverman In his 2015 State of the Union speech, President Barack Obama pressed Congress to “pass a law that makes sure a woman is paid the same as a man for doing the same work.” Although the president’s plea for the passage of stronger pay discrimination laws is unlikely to sway the Republican-controlled […]

Duty to accommodate doesn’t require exempting employee from essential duties

by Andrew Bratt and Megan Rolland Canadian human rights legislation generally requires employers to accommodate the disabilities of their employees up to the point of undue hardship. In the recent case of Pourasadi v. Bentley Leathers Inc. (2015 HRTO 138), the Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario considered whether undue hardship was reached in the context […]

Juries to decide if Uber, Lyft drivers are employees

by Mark I. Schickman One of my earliest cases involved a client who ran a livery service—with a fleet of luxury cars to drive passengers all over town. But neither his cars nor his drivers were properly licensed, and his vehicles were impounded and the drivers were arrested every time they hit the streets—such was […]

Leading change in a challenging environment

by Jerry Glass Leaders of organizations must navigate constantly changing times, whether it’s in the form of unpredictable events or the competitive marketplace in which they operate.  When we look back at what has occurred nationally and globally since 2000, it’s nothing short of earth-shattering. We have had global health scares, including SARS, the H1N1 […]

It’s never easy, but Oprah delivers layoff news in person

Last week, entertainment powerhouse and former talk-show host Oprah Winfrey announced that Harpo Studios in Chicago will be closing its doors by the end of the year, resulting in the loss of nearly 200 jobs. In typical Oprah fashion, she delivered the bad news to her employees in person, probably ambling around the room, microphone-in-hand, […]

Supreme Court of Canada reshapes labor law (again)

by John D.R. Craig, Christopher D. Pigott, and Brandon Wiebe In the January 2015 decision of the Supreme Court of Canada in Saskatchewan Federation of Labour (SFL), the Court found, for the first time, that Canadian workers have a constitutional “right to strike.” In reaching this conclusion, the Supreme Court overturned almost 30 years of […]

Employers, employees see work-life balance through different lenses

Think your employees are satisfied with their work-life balance? They may be, but a recent survey signals they may not be as satisfied as you think. WorkplaceTrends.com, a human resources research portal, and CareerArc, a recruitment and outplacement firm, released their 2015 Workplace Flexibility Study in February. The survey of 1,087 professionals—both employed and those […]

March madness or good, clean fun? What HR needs to know about office gambling

by Justin Lessner For many sports fans, March means March Madness and hour upon glorious hour of college basketball. There’s a good chance that some of your employees are planning office pools, just waiting for Selection Sunday, the day the official brackets are released. While they view office pools and other office gambling as a […]