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

Employment Law

Standardize accommodations process to manage your ADA risks

04/03/2014
Disabled employees who need reasonable accommodations can’t jump the gun and sue prematurely. If they continue doing their jobs and their employer does not take any ad­­verse action against them, they don’t yet have grounds for an ADA lawsuit.

Prevent retaliation after good-faith complaint

04/03/2014

It’s illegal to retaliate against employees for complaining about sex discrimination or harassment. The employee’s initial complaint doesn’t have to pan out, either. It’s enough that the employee reasonably believed in good faith that she was being discriminated against.

Beware retaliation when rehiring after layoff

04/03/2014

When an employee complains about discrimination and then finds himself part of a reduction in force, he may have a tough time proving that the complaint had ­anything to do with the layoff. But if he then ends up being the only employee never recalled or rehired, he may have a retaliation case.

Perez won’t commit to timeline for revising FLSA’s overtime rules

04/03/2014
Secretary of Labor Thomas E. Perez has refused to place a deadline on rewriting the rules that govern overtime pay for exempt employees.

Obama’s 2015 budget: Less for DOL, but more for EEOC enforcement

04/02/2014
The Obama administration’s proposed 2015 budget calls for a slight reduction in federal funding for the U.S. Department of Labor but bigger bucks for the EEOC.

Affordable Care Act: Change it, keep it, scrap it?

04/02/2014
According to a new poll, 64% of Americans now favor keeping the Affordable Care Act in some form.

Supreme Court: Severance is FICA-taxable

04/01/2014
The U.S. Supreme Court on March 25 unanimously ruled that severance pay is subject to withholding of FICA taxes, which employers and employees pay to fund Social Security and Medicare.

How far must we go to accommodate a pregnant employee’s no-lifting request?

03/31/2014
Q. We have a pregnant employee who works as a nurse and has asked that she be excused from lifting patients during her pregnancy. Do we have to grant her request?

Could we be penalized for misclassification?

03/31/2014
Q. We have some employees that have been misclassified as exempt. We are working to rectify the situation, but could we still be penalized for the time the employee was misclassified?

Could questioning an employee about an incident be considered assault?

03/31/2014
Q. One of our employees was involved in an incident and questioned regarding suspected ­wrongdoing. He is now bringing a suit against the company, alleging that the act of being brought into a room and questioned at length constitutes false imprisonment and that the aggressive questioning constituted assault. Does he have a case?