• The HR Specialist - Print Newsletter
  • HR Specialist: Employment Law
  • The HR Weekly

Employment Law

In Allentown, who says one vote doesn’t matter?

07/02/2014
A union election at an Allentown company that provides home health care services may have turned on the vote of one person, who arrived too late to cast a ballot.

Temp agency sued for refusing to place HIV-positive worker

07/02/2014
Pittsburgh-based Maxim Healthcare faces a suit from the EEOC after it refused to place an HIV-positive health­­­­care worker at a Veterans Admin­­is­­­­tra­­tion hospital.

Settling wage case? Include confidentiality clause

07/02/2014
Wage-and-hour cases can drag on—and sometimes turn into class-action lawsuits. That’s why settling early may make sense. But settlements can spawn even more lawsuits. To minimize that possibility, consider using a confidentiality clause.

You can insist: Employees waiting on FMLA certification must follow call-in policy

07/02/2014
Employees who have a pending request for FMLA leave and are just waiting for their doctor to provide the required medical certification must still follow call-in rules. Have a clear policy in place so employees understand what is expected before, during and after their FMLA leave request.

Your potential allies in case of a lawsuit: Applicants who turned down a job offer

07/02/2014
Here’s a case that shows how important it is to keep good records of the interview and hiring process. When a rejected applicant sued, an employer ended up having to call in former applicants to whom it had offered jobs but who had turned down the offers. The employer won the case on the strength of those other candidates’ testimony.

OK to demand proof of full health after FMLA

07/02/2014
Qualified employees who take FMLA leave for their own serious health conditions are entitled to return to their old jobs or equivalent ones once their leave is over. But that’s only true if they are fully healed and able to do their jobs.

Respond ASAP to complaints about stereotyping

07/02/2014
You may have read that stray comments aren’t enough to create liability. That’s true. However, when those comments are “pervasive and regular,” it’s another matter. And the line between stray and regular is anything but clear.

FMLA, 401(k)s extended to same-sex spouses

07/02/2014
Employers continue to feel the impact of last year’s key U.S. Supreme Court ruling in U.S. v. Windsor, which struck down a federal law that had denied federal benefits to legally married same-sex couples. There have been two new developments.

Male employee needs to ‘support his family’: Is that a legal reason to pay him more?

07/02/2014
Here’s a warning for any HR pro or supervisor involved in hiring or pay decisions: Avoid sexist comments about compensation, and steer clear of increasing an employee’s salary because he’s the family breadwinner and, thus, “needs” more money.

Supreme Court ruling could slow NLRB’s aggressive agenda

06/26/2014

Good news for employers: The Supreme Court today said President Obama overstepped his executive powers when he used “recess appointments” to name three members to the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB). As a result, the NLRB will likely have to rehear more than 100 cases from 2012. This could create a procedural logjam at the NLRB, an agency that has been aggressively pursuing expansion of employee rights on the job.