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Employment Law

Any risk of not reducing demoted worker’s pay?

06/10/2019
Q. We moved a salaried supervisor to a rank-and-file hourly position, but we left him at the higher salary. Now, several co-workers are complaining that they’re being paid less for the same job and grumbling about discrimination. The co-workers are of different nationalities than the former supervisor. Should we raise the co-workers’ salaries if we want to be as cautious as possible to avoid a lawsuit?

Fort Worth firm pays $85,000 to settle age bias complaint

06/10/2019
Atlas Energy in Fort Worth has agreed to pay a former production foreman $85,000 to settle an age discrimination lawsuit.

$22,000: Cost of failing to provide space to pump milk

06/10/2019
The Affordable Care Act amended the Fair Labor Standards Act to require employers to provide nursing mothers a clean, private place (that is not a restroom) to express milk. Allegiance Behavioral Health Center, located in Plainview, Texas, apparently didn’t understand that.

Document promotion process to show you chose the best

06/10/2019
Employers that follow their own rules and maintain accurate and complete records of their promotion decisions generally win failure-to-promote cases.

Beware wage-and-hour lawsuits that might suddenly turn into class actions

06/10/2019
Here’s another reason to make sure you are carefully following the Fair Labor Standards Act’s overtime rules: Just one disgruntled and allegedly underpaid employee can file a class-action lawsuit and get the court to authorize contacting all other similarly situated workers to join in as plaintiffs.

Warn all bosses against ageist comments, including the most senior executives

06/10/2019
When you train managers and supervisors, be sure to issue this simple warning: It is never appropriate for anyone in a supervisory role to make age-related comments. The problem is even worse when senior executives make age-related statements.

Prepare to pay up when retaliation is alleged

06/10/2019
Even if you win an employment discrimination case, you may end up losing if someone foolishly retaliates against the employee for complaining in the first place.

Take extra care when firing after ADA, FMLA

06/10/2019
Firing an employee who is returning from ADA or FMLA leave is a risky proposition. Make absolutely sure you can justify the termination with legitimate business reasons that have nothing to do with missing work, taking leave or requesting accommodations.

Tyler docs violated ADA by quizzing staff about health

06/10/2019
The physicians who own Pulmonary Specialists of Tyler and Sleep Health must have missed the part of their training addressing that most medical of employment laws: the ADA.

New California law mandates women on boards of directors

06/06/2019
Last September, California enacted Senate Bill 826, a pioneering law that requires every publicly held company headquartered in California to have at least one woman on its board of directors. Currently, a quarter of the state’s public companies have no female directors.