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Employment Law

Multiple locations? Handle FMLA with care

09/16/2013
Employers with 50 or more employees within 75 miles must provide FMLA leave. If they have multiple locations, they must often provide leave to some em­­ployees but not others. If that’s your situation, beware making blanket handbook statements about FMLA leave eligibility.

For OT, it’s the truck’s weight classification–not the load–that counts

09/16/2013

Employers have long relied on the truck weight classification—not the actual weight the truck is carrying—to determine whether a driver received overtime. That was recently challenged in a class-action lawsuit.

Don’t expect to get away with paying undocumented workers less than law requires

09/16/2013
In a case that shows courts are losing patience with employers that hire undocumented ­workers and then flout wage-and-hour laws, a federal court has zapped an em­­ployer almost $285,000 in unpaid wages and penalties, and another $150,000 to pay the former em­­ployees’ legal fees.

Less liability if you knew of disability on hiring

09/16/2013

Some employers worry that hiring a disabled employee increases the chances they will be sued for disability discrimination. Don’t worry needlessly. The fact that you knew the employee was disabled actually helps later if he sues for discrimination.

How not to handle a union movement

09/16/2013

It’s natural to feel betrayed and up­set if you have an open-shop workplace and find out some employees have invited outsiders to help organize a union. But if you handle the news badly, you may end up in the cross hairs of the NLRB before a single union vote is cast.

‘Co-workers ignored me’ is not enough evidence to support a discrimination case

09/12/2013

Some employees just aren’t very likable, and that can lead to workplace awkwardness. Co-workers may ignore their prickly colleagues and only deal with them when necessary. That’s OK as long as this mild ostracism does not spill over into ­discrimination.

White House under new pressure to pay interns

09/11/2013
A grassroots lobbying effort led by the Fair Pay Campaign is pushing employers to pay their interns, starting with the White House.

Your best bet for beating false allegations: Good records, consistently fair practices

09/10/2013
You can never predict which employee will sue and over what alleged wrong. That’s why the best approach is to focus on treating every employee fairly and consistently, applying your rules even-handedly.

Independent investigation key to clean terminations

09/10/2013
Before you terminate an employee for breaking a company rule, be sure that you have someone else look at the situation. Never rely strictly on the supervisor’s view of events.

Beware retaliation after employee complains

09/10/2013
Watch out if a supervisor suddenly gives a poor performance review to a previously good employee who has recently complained about discrimination. Unless you can clearly show that the employee’s performance was deteriorating, you might be setting yourself up for an otherwise avoidable retaliation lawsuit.