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

Employment Law

When workplace romance goes bad, fall back on sexual harassment policy for discipline

06/17/2011

It’s bound to happen eventually: Two of your employees will have an affair. Then one of them will break it off, leaving the other hurt, angry and perhaps vengeful. It’s all a recipe for disaster—and HR will have to manage the situation. You can punish them both, assuming they are merely co-workers. But if your rules aren’t very specific, you’ll have to be careful.

Different rules for pre- and post-birth FMLA leave?

06/17/2011
Q. We have a pregnant employee. She needs to take time off for medical appointments and perhaps complications. She then wants to take FMLA leave for birth and bonding. Should we require two separate medical certifications? And should we count all the medical appointments related to pregnancy against her 12 weeks of FMLA leave?

What web resources can we use to make sure we are in compliance with I-9 rules?

06/16/2011
Q. Our company needs guidance on keeping up with our obligations with regard to employment eligibility. What resources are available?

Can we require ‘English-only’ at work? Foreign-language chatter is affecting morale

06/16/2011
Q. Some of our employees speak to each other in their native language. We are worried that some workers will feel excluded. To boost employee morale, we would like to institute a policy prohibiting our workers from speaking any language other than English during the workday. Is such a policy legal?

Supreme Court upholds Arizona immigration law, backs E-Verify

06/16/2011
The U.S. Supreme Court has concluded that federal immigration law does not pre-empt or invalidate an Arizona law that subjects Arizona employers to sanctions for knowingly or intentionally employing unauthorized workers and requiring them to use the federal government’s E-Verify online employment eligibility verification system.

Sex harassment, retaliation cost gourmet company $535K

06/16/2011
Monterey Gourmet Foods, a Salinas specialty foods maker, will pay $535,000 to settle an EEOC lawsuit alleging a supervisor sexually har­assed workers, who were fired after they complained.

Cal/OSHA puts heat on contractor after flash fire injures welder

06/16/2011
The California Division of Occu­pa­tional Safety and Health has fined a public works contractor more than $235,000—and threatened to put it out of business and criminally prosecute executives—after a welder suffered severe burns in a workplace flash fire.

LAPD pays huge judgment for sexual orientation retaliation

06/16/2011
A state court jury has awarded more than $1 million to a Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) sergeant who sued the department for retali­a­tion after he complained about shoddy treatment because he is gay.

Employee cites mental distress? Ask for mental exam

06/16/2011
Employees who sue but can’t show they suffered any monetary damages sometimes claim mental distress instead. Fortunately, courts don’t just take their word it, especially if the employee claims she had to undergo psychiatric treatment.

Know the other side’s Achilles’ heel! Plaintiffs must act fast to win court injunctions

06/16/2011

Once a lawsuit has been filed, courts sometimes issue immediate orders—called injunctions—to prevent irre­parable harm. But to get an injunction, the party seeking the order has to show what harm could occur—and convince the court it will probably win the case on its merits. That’s unlikely if the litigant waits too long to ask for relief.