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Compensation & Benefits

Notification error doesn’t extend FMLA rights

04/01/2002
Your company no longer has to worry about giving extra leave to an employee if you fail to designate the employee’s leave as counting toward her Family and Medical Leave Act …

Don’t refuse to pay commission just because salesperson quits

04/01/2002
Timothy McCabe worked as a sales rep and was paid a salary plus commissions. He resigned after a year-and-a-half, but he didn’t collect some $32,000 in commissions owed him for sales …

Wage gap widens between men, women managers

04/01/2002
A new government report could spark more claims under the Equal Pay Act. It says that not only do women managers earn less than their male peers, but the wage gap …

‘Hybrid’ pay plan can kill exempt status

04/01/2002
A full-time home health care nurse in Cleveland was required to complete at least 25 patient visits per week, for which she was paid on a per-visit fee basis. She also …

Gross misconduct gets tougher to prove

03/01/2002
After a Philadelphia school district fired a high-school math teacher for misusing money from the extracurricular activity account, the teacher sued. He claimed, among other things, that the school district refused …

Expect Enron fallout to sway retirement offerings

03/01/2002
With the collapse of giant energy trader Enron Corp. grabbing headlines, expect new skepticism and tough questions from employees about the makeup of your company’s own retirement plan. Hundreds of …

Night-Shift Liability

03/01/2002

Q. Our company doesn’t have a policy on night shifts, but we’ve asked one of our hourly employees to work from 1 to 9 p.m. without any supervision. If something should happen to the employee while on night duty, are we liable for it? I’ve checked with my state labor department and workers’ comp office, and they say we’re not. —L.R., Florida

Stress leave: How much must you accommodate?

03/01/2002
Do any of these situations sound familiar? At Aon Corp., which lost many workers in the World Trade Center attack, groups …

Capping Sick Pay

03/01/2002

Q. One of our managers has medical problems (she qualifies for the ADA and is in an age-protected class) and has used a significant amount of sick pay. Because we don’t have a defined sick pay policy, this manager is paid sick time whenever she’s out (full day or half day). How can we legally cap this? Is the development of a policy with specific hours our only alternative? —F.E., Georgia

Denying pay raise is ‘adverse employment action’

03/01/2002
Salome Fierros filed an internal complaint against her boss for assigning her duties that other lab technicians weren’t required to do. Soon after, Fierros claimed, the director retaliated by denying her …