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California

Arbitration can include preliminary meeting

08/27/2018
Drafting an arbitration agreement? You can include a requirement that employees who want to pursue arbitration first meet with management to discuss their work-related issues.

Employers must take steps to put a stop to customer harassment of employees

08/27/2018
The source of the harassment doesn’t matter. What matters is that the employer knew about the harassment and didn’t take adequate steps to stop it or prevent it from happening again.

Without acknowledgment of receipt and acceptance, arbitration agreement isn’t valid

08/27/2018
If you are implementing a new arbitration agreement, make sure you get every employee’s signature acknowledging that they received it and agree to its terms. What if someone refuses to sign? That means he may not be bound by the terms of the agreement, which means any dispute probably won’t be resolved through arbitration.

Accurate pay statements: your responsibility

08/27/2018
It is the employer’s responsibility to ensure employees receive accurate wage statements with each paycheck. That’s true even if the employee hasn’t provided an accurate accounting of time worked.

Time rounding must generally favor employees

08/27/2018
Under Department of Labor regulations covering the Fair Labor Standards Act, employers must pay workers for all time worked, subject to some rounding. Time may be kept, and pay computed, based on rounding “to the nearest 5 minutes, or to the nearest one-tenth or quarter of an hour.”

When a previously good performer starts to slide, carefully document decline

08/06/2018
When an employer fires a worker for poor performance and the worker sues alleging some sort of discrimination, the employer must be ready to explain any apparent decline in its performance appraisals. That’s especially true if the worker previously received excellent reviews.

Time clock rounding case offers lessons on compensable time

07/30/2018
If you use a rounding system, take care to ensure that it is fair and neutral, and that, on average, the amount of employee time that is deducted is the same or less than the amount added to time records as time worked.

Central Valley, Calif. firms pay in wake of migrant worker deaths

07/30/2018
The U.S. Department of Labor has secured judgments against two Fresno-area firms that violated the Migrant and Seasonal Agricultural Worker Protection Act by providing unsafe transportation to migrant workers.

Long gap between complaint and discharge kills case

07/30/2018
Employees who engage in protected activity such as complaining about alleged discrimination are protected from retaliation for doing so. But that protection doesn’t last forever.

Avoid deviating from past disciplinary process

07/30/2018
When you have a disciplinary process in place and have used it before, don’t deviate from it unless you encounter truly extraordinary circumstances. Otherwise, you may face a discrimination claim.