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California

Can we prohibit employees from receiving private packages at work?

12/09/2009

Q. Over the holidays, many of our employees received packages at the office. We are worried that this might be a disruption. Should we ban employees from receiving personal packages at work?

Make sure your e-communication policy covers social networks

12/08/2009

The widespread use of blogs and social networking web sites such as Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn and Twitter has employers worried about what their employees are keyboarding and texting. Employers must develop electronic communications policies to cope with the new technology.

What should we do about gifts from vendors?

12/08/2009

Q. Sometimes our vendors provide modest gifts for our employees. How should we handle these?

Can we cap how much vacation can accrue?

12/04/2009

Q. Our vacation policy caps the amount of vacation employees can earn at 250 hours. Employees can’t earn any more until the vacation balance falls below that level. Does this violate California’s law on accruing vacation?

Can we make employees or applicants pay for medical examinations?

12/04/2009

Q. Under what circumstances, if any, can an employer require an applicant or employee to pay for his or her own medical or physical examination?

Workers want longer days, shorter weeks? Lower hourly pay may dodge OT obligations

12/01/2009

Sometimes, employees prefer to work longer than eight hours a day in exchange for more days off. Ordinarily, changing schedules to accommodate such a request would mean paying overtime for the additional hours in excess of eight per day under California law. But now, in a unique case, the 9th Circuit has ruled that, in limited circumstances, changing the hourly rate for those who want the longer shifts doesn’t violate the law …

Racially unbalanced workforce doesn’t prove disparate impact

12/01/2009

Employees won’t win race discrimination disparate-impact lawsuits just by showing that their employer’s workforce isn’t racially balanced. They also have to show that the employer applied a specific or particular employment practice that created the disparate impact.

Employees awarded $2M … lawyer blows it day trading

12/01/2009

An Orange County attorney has agreed to plead guilty to two felony charges after frittering away millions of dollars of his clients’ settlement awards—by placing losing bets on the stock market. Sandeep Baweja, sole proprietor of Baweja Law Group, was representing 800 real estate agents who sued their employer for denying commissions and other payments.

What can we do? We accidentally overpaid an employee who was out on workers’ comp leave

12/01/2009

Q. While one of our employees was on workers’ compensation leave, she received disability payments. Due to a clerical error, we failed to take her off the payroll during that time, and she continued to receive her regular paychecks while on leave. The employee now refuses to sign an agreement to return the money on a payment schedule we were willing to set up. As a result, we would like to dock her pay for the overpayments. Are we allowed to do so?

Can an employee opt out of mandatory breaks?

12/01/2009

Q. An employee has asked to work through his two daily 10-minute rest periods because he would like to leave work 20 minutes early. Are we permitted to implement this arrangement upon his request?