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Employment Law

A friend indeed: Do Facebook users have privacy rights?

08/23/2012

At last count, the more than 900 million Facebook users have more than 125 billion “friends.” But in the workplace, who is really your friend on Facebook? In this recent case, a manager strong-armed an employee to get access to a co-worker’s Facebook page. Is that an invasion of privacy?

NLRB takes aim at at-will clauses in employee handbooks

08/22/2012
In a continuation of its recent anti-employer rulings, the National Labor Relations Board is now focusing on a staple of employee handbooks—at-will employment clauses that notify employees they can be terminated at any time for any lawful reason.

How must we accommodate breastfeeding?

08/21/2012

Q. One of our employees is on maternity leave. What are our obligations to accommodate her need to breastfeed when she returns to work?

How much flexibility do we have to set up alternative workweek schedules?

08/21/2012

Q. Our company employs nurses that care for patients in their homes. We would like to begin running 12-hour shifts and set up an alternative workweek schedule. What are the rules for instituting an alternative workweek for our employees?

Home nursing agency settles federal wage dispute

08/21/2012
Extended Health Care Private Duty Nursing, a Los Angeles-area home nursing agency, has agreed to pay $654,082 to settle a Fair Labor Standards Act complaint that followed a federal probe into its pay practices.

Court gives EEOC employee another chance to sue

08/21/2012
The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals has given a government employee another shot at a discrimination lawsuit. The case highlights how complicated the litigation process has become, since apparently even the EEOC doesn’t know the rules.

Specifics matter when workers allege discrimination

08/21/2012

Employees who complain to their employers about discrimination are usually protected from retaliation. But they must at least mention the sort of discrimination at issue. Simply protesting that an evaluation wasn’t fair won’t do the trick.

Court: Employee must tie claims to protected status to win hostile environment case

08/21/2012
Some employees think that any unfair treatment is grounds for a lawsuit under either federal law or California’s Fair Employment and Housing Act (FEHA). Fortunately for em­­ployers, mundane workplace gripes aren’t enough to support a lawsuit.

Get expert legal advice to make sure arbitration agreements are valid and enforceable

08/21/2012
The Court of Appeal of California has upheld an arbitration agreement included in an employee handbook. The difference between this case and the arbitration case in “Don’t bury arbitration agreement in handbook”: The agreement was clear and obvious.

Feds dig for dirt on SoCal landscaper pay compliance

08/21/2012
The U.S. Department of Labor’s Wage and Hour Division is targeting Southern California’s landscape industry, looking for contractors and subcontractors that pay workers less than minimum wage.