• The HR Specialist - Print Newsletter
  • HR Specialist: Employment Law
  • The HR Weekly

Wages & Hours

UPS, contractors owe $1.2 million to misclassified janitors

11/01/2007

Nearly 500 Latino janitors who cleaned UPS facilities, hotels and other properties in Illinois and Texas won a $1.2 million settlement for unpaid overtime and back wages. According to the Service Employees International Union, which supported the lawsuit in U.S. District Court, Northern District of Illinois, the janitors were misclassified as independent contractors …

New law targets construction firms that misclassify workers

11/01/2007

Illinois has its sights on construction firms that misclassify employees as independent contractors to save on taxes, wages and benefits. Gov. Rod Blagojevich recently signed H.B.1795, the Employee Classification Act, which automatically classifies construction workers as employees unless they meet one of two exceptions …

Is there an FLSA violation hiding in your company handbook?

11/01/2007

Why bother to wordsmith and labor over every word in your employment policies? Because sometimes an employer’s own pen can create liability. That was the case recently for an Illinois employer that will now go on trial for allegedly violating federal and state wage laws. Exhibit A on the list of evidence against the company: its employment policy handbook …

Green light to discipline managers who doctor time cards

11/01/2007

In today’s litigious environment, it doesn’t take much for a disgruntled employee to launch a class-action overtime lawsuit. In fact, such litigation is sweeping the country—and costing employers millions of dollars. That’s why conscientious employers act fast to stamp out a dangerous and illegal practice: managers altering pay records to avoid paying overtime. If you catch managers cooking the payroll books, punish them promptly …

18 Tyson Foods unpaid-Wage suits consolidated in GA court

11/01/2007

Springfield-based Tyson Foods received approval from a U.S. judiciary panel to consolidate 18 employee lawsuits alleging labor-law violations concerning minimum wages, overtime and record-keeping. The lawsuits, which were filed in the district courts in 10 states, will be heard together in the Middle District of Georgia …

How to handle missed time-clock punches

11/01/2007

Q. At our office, if an employee misses a time-clock punch, his pay for that day is suspended until he receives his check stub. The employee must then fill out a missed time-card punch form and have it signed by a senior partner. The missed pay is then applied to the person’s next pay period. Is this legal? — D.L., Virginia …

Mandatory doctor visits: Must you pay for the time?

11/01/2007

Q. We sometimes send our employees to our company doctor. Do we have to pay employees their hourly rates for their time? Also, are we responsible for any accidents that happen on the drive? —C.C., Arizona …

Report finds state job growth on far ends of the spectrum

11/01/2007

A report published by the nonprofit California Budget Project has found that job growth in California was considerably concentrated at the highest and lowest ends of the earnings range. According to the report, A Generation of Widening Inequality, which was issued on Aug. 23, the gap between the two ends has widened in the past decade and will continue to do so in the coming years …

Federal judge decertifies FedEx Kinko’s FLSA class

11/01/2007

Judge Saundra Brown Armstrong of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California has decertified a class action in an overtime suit involving FedEx Kinko’s managers. According to Armstrong, the 490 “center managers” in California were executive employees and therefore exempt from overtime pay under California law in spite of the fact that they reported to other FedEx Kinko officials …

California Supreme Court issues key class-Action ruling

11/01/2007

The California Supreme Court has issued its long-awaited decision in the case of Gentry v. Superior Court, deciding whether class-action waivers in employment arbitration agreements are legally binding. In a case of good news/bad news for employers, the court didn’t say that all arbitration agreements, or even all class-action waivers, were invalid—just the poorly drafted ones …