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Florida

Miami-Dade, vendor settle—and whistle-blower gets $1.25M

03/11/2010

Miami-Dade County has agreed to settle a long-running legal dispute with the Wackenhut security firm, and one of the biggest winners is a Wackenhut worker who blew the whistle on the company. The battle began in 2005 when Michelle Trimble accused her employer of billing the county for 300 hours of work a week that no one was performing. The alleged overbilling amounted to $4.5 million per year.

With arbitration under attack, consider right-to-jury-trial waivers

03/11/2010

With the enactment of the Franken Amendment to the Defense Appropriations Act for FY 2010, Congress and the Obama administration have begun an assault on employers’ use of mandatory arbitration as an alternative to court trials for resolving workplace disputes and claims. Employers have been asking whether other alternatives to jury trials will exist in the absence of arbitration. One alternative that companies can consider: entering into waivers of civil jury trials with their employees.

Employee out on military leave: Must we pay him?

03/11/2010

Q. We have an employee who will soon go on temporary military duty soon and be gone for several weeks. Do we have to pay him at all during his absence, or does he receive military pay?

Fire away if defiance follows discipline

03/05/2010

Some employees don’t respond well to corrective discipline. They may become angry and combative. You don’t have to put up with that sort of behavior. In fact, you can use that reaction as a valid termination reason.

Labor alert! The NLRA can apply to nonunion employers, too

02/16/2010

You’re probably familiar with the legislative fight brewing over the proposed Employee Free Choice Act. That debate has spotlighted a fact many employers don’t realize: Nonunion employers must comply with requirements of the National Labor Relations Act. To help you comply, here are the major traps to watch for.

Fed contractors will have to post ‘right to unionize’ notice

02/16/2010

New regulations will require organizations with federal contracts worth $100,000 or more to post a notice outlining employee rights to organize and stating the federal government’s policy encouraging union membership. For more information, visit www.dol.gov/olms.

No way to accommodate? Then you don’t have to

02/09/2010

Employers are obligated to engage in an interactive accommodations process when disabled employees request an accommodation and one is possible. But if you’re confident it’s not possible to accommodate the disabled worker—that he would never be able to perform the job’s essential functions—then you don’t have to go through the motions.

Develop fail-safe application tracking system

02/09/2010

Do you have an employee who consistently applies for open positions for which she falls short on qualifications? You may be tempted to “lose” or “misplace” her applications. Be bigger than that. Instead, exercise patience and handle her applications just as you would for any other applicant.

3 Florida employers make ‘100 best places to work’ list

02/09/2010

A Toyota and Lexus dealer and automotive services company, a health care system and an employee-owned supermarket represent Florida on Fortune magazine’s 100 Best Companies to Work For list.

Beware the high price of foul language: Expensive trials before unsympathetic judges

02/09/2010

It doesn’t happen often, but now the 11th Circuit has issued a rare unanimous en banc opinion. The judges, without a single dissent, ruled that a woman who quit her job because she couldn’t stand alleged daily sexual harassment can take her case to trial. The decision includes some important guidelines for what will be considered sexual harassment and what is simply crude and generally offensive behavior.