After being locked out since Oct. 21, 2012, musicians with the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra are prepared to complete a shortened season with a smaller contingent. A tentative agreement ending the lockout cuts the orchestra from 34 members to 28 and lowers the guaranteed minimum salary to $60,000—19% less than the previous contract that expired last September.

Sometimes, it’s pretty obvious you need to terminate an employee. That doesn’t mean you don’t have to investigate and document your decision.

If an employee has signed an agreement promising to arbitrate employment claims, tell the court right away and ask it to compel arbitration. Otherwise, the court might decide that you waived your right to ask.

Q. We would like to ask all of our employees to sign arbitration agreements. However, in light of the 2011 U.S. Supreme Court decision in AT&T Mobility v. Conception, we would like these arbitration agreements to contain class-action waivers. How should we handle this process, given that we are in the transportation industry?

Employers that do business in several states often have a single employee handbook covering all workers at all locations. If that de­­scribes your organization, be careful about how you handle details like arbitration agreements.

A California Court of Appeal re­­cently held that an arbitration agreement was unenforceable because it was unconscionably one-sided.

A bill before the Minnesota House of Representatives would severely curb employers’ ability to force employees to sign noncompete agreements. The legislation, patterned after laws on the books in California and Mon­­tana, would ban a contract that prohibits a party from exercising a lawful, profession, trade, or business except under certain circumstances.

The 8th Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled that an employee who previously agreed to waive her right to file a class-action overtime lawsuit does indeed have to rely on individual arbitration of her claim.

In Nitro-Lift Technologies, L.L.C. v. Howard, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the Oklahoma Supreme Court failed to adhere to a correct interpretation of the Federal Arbitration Act (FAA).

Temporary workers can still sue even if they no longer work for you because their contracts expired and weren’t renewed.

Get an agreement in writing with any employees who use social media under the company’s name. It should clarify who owns those accounts and what will happen to the followers if the employees departs.

Does your handbook clearly spell out that employees are truly at-will employees? If not, be sure to add language doing so the next time you update your handbook.

Want to stop unfair competition from former employees? Have them acknowledge that customer lists that they may have access to are considered trade secrets and that they can’t solicit customers from those lists after leaving.

Employers that decide to add an arbitration agreement to their conditions of employment often try to get every employee’s signature on the document. But what if some employees don’t sign? What will you do? Can you count on the agreement being binding anyway? That’s unclear.

The easiest way to make sure employees understand that they are employed on an at-will basis is to place disclaimers throughout your employee handbook. Five key elements will help those disclaimers stand up in court if an employee ever mounts a legal challenge to at-will employment.