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Employment Law

Hennepin County driver files religious accommodation suit

01/13/2010

The tension between an employee’s right to religious accommodation and an employer’s need to get work done is at the heart of a case being heard in Hennepin County. A Seventh-day Adventist was fired after refusing to work between sundown on Friday and sundown on Saturday, the Adventists’ Sabbath.

Does the FMLA apply after a loved one has died?

01/13/2010

Q. I have an employee who has been taking FMLA leave to care for her ill mother. The employee’s mother recently died, and the employee has requested an additional few weeks to attend to some issues with her mother’s estate. Can I continue to treat this time as FMLA leave?

Could we have refused to hire waitress who now refuses to sing ‘Happy Birthday’?

01/13/2010

Q. One of the waitresses working in our restaurant claims her religion forbids her from singing “Happy Birthday” to customers. If, during her interview, we had identified this requirement as an essential job function, and if she said she couldn’t sing the song for religious reasons, would we have been within our rights to refuse to hire her?

Do we need new record-retention rules now that the Ledbetter law has been enacted?

01/13/2010

Q. I keep hearing that the Ledbetter Act means we may need to hold onto documents about employees beyond our current retention policies. What do we need to do to make sure our document-retention policies comply with the law?

No money for promised pay raise: Now what?

01/12/2010

Q. Do we have to conduct regular performance appraisals and give annual increases? We told a new hire that we would, but now don’t have time or money to do so.

Heed legal risks of recruiting via Facebook, LinkedIn

01/12/2010

Employers seeking Internet-savvy candidates have been flocking to social media sites in the past year. But employers (and their lawyers) are discovering a hidden problem in that recruiting-by-Facebook strategy: Depending too much on the sites could leave your organization vulnerable to age and race discrimination lawsuits.

Assigning black employees to black clients: Is that racial bias?

01/12/2010

Here’s a problem you might not see coming. Let’s say you have an employee who belongs to a protected class, and whose skills you believe will help when relating to others of the same protected class. Before you decide to assign work to the employee based on those skills, consider whether doing so is, in effect, unspoken segregation.

Tamp down lawsuits with good promotion records

01/12/2010

In today’s tough economic climate, more and more employees are willing to stay put, applying for promotions instead of looking for jobs in other organizations. That means more competition for promotions—and more opportunities for disgruntled employee to sue when they’re passed over.

What’s retaliation? Depends on the employee

01/12/2010

No doubt you have heard many times that retaliation is anything that would dissuade a reasonable employee from complaining about something in the first place. But minor actions usually don’t add up to retaliation. Unfortunately, the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals, which has jurisdiction over New York employers, has now muddied the retaliation waters.

New York revives ‘early-outs’ for state employees

01/12/2010

In an attempt to close a gaping state deficit, New York Budget Director Robert Megna has told government agencies to offer early-retirement packages to state employees. The state made a similar offer earlier in 2009, and 1,100 workers took that option before it expired in early November.