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Employment Law

Government employee’s speech that sounds like insubordination may be protected

10/21/2015
Public employees are entitled to free speech under the Constitution—within limits. For example, the speech must involve matters of public importance. Under the right circumstances, arguing with a supervisor may even be protected.

Duties matter, not what business card says: Fancy title doesn’t make employee exempt

10/21/2015

What you call an employee doesn’t determine whether she’s properly classified as exempt. What matters are her duties. If they are routine and menial in nature, she’s not exempt, even if she holds a lofty title within the organization.

Let the pros in HR handle that! Bosses shouldn’t meddle in FMLA, ADA issues

10/21/2015

Some managers think they can handle employees with disabilities on their own. That’s never a good idea. Someone in HR should oversee every aspect of disability accommodations. Leave management out of it—other than requiring every manager and supervisor to report immediately potential disabilities to HR. Otherwise, things can go badly wrong, as they did in one recent case.

Fancy title doesn’t make employee exempt

10/21/2015

What you call an employee doesn’t determine whether she’s properly classified as exempt. What matters are her duties. If they are routine and menial in nature, she’s not exempt, even if she holds a lofty title within the organization.

Don’t let FMLA stop planned staffing changes

10/20/2015
Normally, it’s risky to fire someone who has just taken FMLA leave. However, you can terminate such an employee—if you can show that changes were underway before FMLA leave began.

Does your parental leave policy discriminate?

10/19/2015
In several recent lawsuits, courts have ruled that parental leave policies thought to generously provide time off for new mothers were actually discriminatory—against new fathers.

The 5 reasons employees can take FMLA leave

10/19/2015
Except in the case of leave to care for a covered service member with a serious injury or illness, U.S. Department of Labor regulations say an eligible employee’s FMLA leave entitlement is limited to a total of 12 workweeks of leave during any 12-month period for any one, or more, of the following reasons.

NLRB rejects employer contention of no union support

10/16/2015
Anderson Lumber Co. in Sacramento has lost its bid to decertify Local 150 of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters as its employees’ bargaining unit. The controversy arose in 2012 when the two sides were negotiating a successor agreement. The Teamsters have represented Anderson Lumber employees for 50 years.

Protect against breach-of-contract claims

10/16/2015
Precise language in a settlement agreement helped an employer survive a breach-of-contract lawsuit filed by a former employee.

New push to mandate predictable schedules

10/15/2015
While there are no federal rules that require employers to tell employees well in advance what their schedules will be, some states are beginning to change that.