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

Employment Law

Can we make employees pay for work uniforms?

06/05/2009

Q. Are there any laws that prohibit me from charging my employees for their mandatory work uniforms?

How can we prepare for a flu pandemic?

06/05/2009

Q. I am very concerned about the H1N1 flu outbreak, especially if it flares up again this fall. Are there are steps I should take to prepare my business if an employee contracts the illness?

May we ask employees to ‘volunteer’ their time?

06/05/2009

Q. We are considering asking our employees to donate some time back to the company as a way to save costs and avoid having to lay off anyone. By “donate time” I mean working one or more hours per week without pay. Is this legal?

Can we represent ourselves in a lawsuit?

06/05/2009

Q. A former employee just filed a lawsuit against my company. The potential dollar value of the claim is so small, I do not want to hire a lawyer. However, I do want to fight the claim. Can the company just represent itself in court without an attorney?

Looking for work? NLRB has openings

06/05/2009

Cushy government jobs, but a lot of headaches await the successful applicants for two key government jobs. Years of political infighting may be coming to an end soon, as President Obama has sent two names to Congress for confirmation to become members of the National Labor Relations Board.

Rules of the road: Know when to pay hourly employees for travel time

06/02/2009
You don’t need to pay nonexempt employees for their commuting time to and from the workplace. That’s simple. But what if such employees occasionally travel off-site (or even overnight) for work reasons?

Are employees twittering the day away?

06/01/2009

Whether they’re shooting off their own “tweets” or following others, workers using Twitter—the fastest-growing social networking site—are creating liability and PR risks with their 140-character rants, raves and company gossip. Advice: Draft a brief policy on  your organization’s expectations for employee’s use of Twitter and other social networking sites (plus video).

Paid sick leave for all workers? Congress weighs the idea

06/01/2009

Legislation introduced in Congress on May 19 would require employers with 15 or more workers to provide at least seven days of paid sick leave per employee per year.

OSHA: Record injuries from ‘horseplay,’ team-building

06/01/2009

If your organization is required to keep track of employees’ injuries, take note of two OSHA interpretation letters.

Feds delay start date for E-Verify, ‘red flag’ rules

06/01/2009

The federal government has announced a delay in the implementation date for two regulations that affect employers: E-Verify and the "red flag" rules.