04/01/2007
Q. We are a nonunion company and obviously would like to stay that way. We gave a very modest wage increase six months ago, and we just learned that another company in the same industrial park got hit with a union organizing campaign. I think we should be proactive. Normally we review wages every 12 months, but I want to recommend to my management team that we break that cycle and do a wage increase now. Can we get in any trouble by going ahead with a wage increase now, even though it’s not in keeping with our regular practice? —C.O.
04/01/2007
Q. One of our male supervisors fired what we in HR thought was a poor-performing female employee. During the exit interview, the terminated employee told us that her supervisor fired her because he was sexually harassing her and she threatened to report him if it didn’t stop. It turned out that her claim was legitimate. We immediately called her back to work.
We thought we had dodged a bullet but, unfortunately, we’ve been contacted by her attorney, who threatened a lawsuit unless we agree to settle her claim for a lot of money. We will contact an attorney to represent us, but we want to know if the fact that we brought her right back to work is going to make a difference? —L.W.
