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Employment Law

Despite law, 70 California firms have no women on boards

12/02/2019
Last year, the state passed a law requiring companies headquartered in California to have at least one female director on their board. As a result, female representation in California boardrooms has risen 23%. However, not all California firms received the message.

Prior service counts toward FMLA eligibility

12/02/2019
To be eligible for job-protected FMLA leave, employees must have worked for you for at least one year and for 1,250 hours in the preceding year. The minimum one-year service requirement, however, doesn’t have to be met by a single, uninterrupted 52-week period.

EEOC claims $486 million for victims of workplace bias

12/02/2019
The EEOC secured $486 million for victims of discrimination in the workplace in fiscal year 2019, according to the commission’s annual financial report.

Hiring doesn’t end accommodation process

12/02/2019
The obligation to accommodate disabled job applicants is ongoing, throughout the employee’s tenure on the job. That’s the lesson recently learned by an employer that should have known better.

Background checks cost retailer $6 million

12/02/2019
You may think it’s good business to run criminal background checks on all applicants. It’s not. In fact, poorly run criminal background checks can be a multi-million dollar mistake.

Ensure disciplinary documents contain enough detail to justify harsh punishment

11/30/2019
Details are especially important when different employees break similar rules and you punish some more harshly than others. You need to be able to show why you fired one employee while another whose misconduct was identical was allowed to keep his job.

Hairstyles become latest flashpoint for grooming disputes

11/25/2019
Hair is becoming the new battleground over employer expectations and employee compliance. Increasingly, state and local authorities have stepped in, siding with employees who challenge grooming policies.

Proposed rule could end push for graduate student unions

11/25/2019
On Sept. 23, 2019, the National Labor Relations Board published a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking that addresses the longstanding issue of whether undergraduate and graduate students who perform services for compensation (including teaching or research) at private colleges and universities can form a union under the National Labor Relations Act.

Pay bias settlement to cost Goldman Sachs almost $10M

11/25/2019
Investment banking colossus Goldman Sachs & Co. has agreed to a massive settlement with the U.S. Department of Labor’s Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs to resolve charges it discriminated against women and minorities in its pay practices.

SOX whistleblower claims must be filed with feds

11/25/2019
The 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals has clarified what employees must do before taking Sarbanes-Oxley Act whistleblower claims to federal court. Employees must first file a complaint with the appropriate federal regulatory agency within 180 days of the alleged employer wrongdoing.