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Employment Law

Watch those deadlines! Harvard didn’t

11/08/2022
You heard about the affirmative action case filed against Harvard University; the oral arguments took place in October before the Supreme Court. At least Harvard assumed you heard about the case. The university also assumed that their insurance company, Zurich American Insurance Co., knew about it. Wrong.

Don’t round time! Every minute counts

11/08/2022
Home Depot’s practice of rounding hourly employees’ total daily hours to the nearest quarter hour rather than the actual time worked, as recorded by a timekeeping system, resulted in underpaying an employee.

Kroger needed a policy for a rainy day

11/08/2022
Kroger has settled a religious bias claim for $180,000. Two religious employees in Arkansas refused to wear the grocery chain’s rainbow heart logo on their aprons because they claimed the rainbow represented support for LGBTQ people and politics, which they opposed on religious grounds.

IC vs. employee rule: Expect delays

11/01/2022
The DOL’s recent proposed rule on how to distinguish an independent contractor from an employee differs from the Trump administration’s rule, which never went into effect. Before the Biden administration’s rule took effect, there was already a lawsuit on procedural grounds and related delays.

Lactation breaks may cause resentment

11/01/2022
The right to unlimited lactation breaks can create scheduling headaches as co-workers and supervisors scramble to ensure coverage. Some co-workers may even express resentment. Fortunately, a recent federal appeals case doesn’t hold employers responsible for this.

DOL eyes employers’ high earners

11/01/2022
You may think that paying employees a large salary automatically means you won’t be targeted by the Department of Labor for FLSA overtime violations. Isn’t it reasonable to expect employees who earn $100,000 or more to be exempt from overtime? Unfortunately, the DOL doesn’t see it quite that way.

Women exit in record numbers

10/26/2022
Female leaders are leaving their companies at the highest rate in years, and the gap between male and female leaders leaving is the largest ever seen, according to Lean In’s 2022 Women in the Workplace Report.

Tattoos no longer workplace taboo

10/26/2022
Since the start of covid, a study shows that 60% of Americans think that the definition of what is deemed “professional” has changed, according to Bloomberg. And that includes tattoos.

Sexual harassment: This employer did everything right

10/26/2022
Fortunately for the defendant-employer in this case, it had an effective policy and made it available to employees (including the plaintiffs) in various ways.

Are you prepared for layoffs?

10/26/2022
Increasingly, workers who have sidelined themselves are returning to the labor market. This means new hires are more likely to come from legally protected groups, including those older than 40, the disabled and women with young children. Now is the time to prepare for inevitable layoffs in a way that doesn’t trap you in litigation.