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Indiana

Holiday parties: Don’t let best of times become worst of times

10/07/2008

By exerting proper control over your holiday party this year, you can reduce everyone’s worries concerning the annual fete. Most important, careful planning will help your company avoid lawsuits as you ring in the New Year.

Count minutes—not just hours—when figuring FMLA eligibility

09/23/2008

The FMLA limits leave eligibility to those employees who have worked at least 1,250 hours in the previous 12 months. Employers are perfectly within their rights to stick scrupulously to that 1,250-hour benchmark. They don’t have to round the hours up if the employee comes up short …

Indiana employers overlooked health incentive tax break

09/23/2008

Only two companies in the state took advantage of the health insurance tax credit introduced under the Indiana Check-Up Plan last year. The plan granted credits of $50 per employee to businesses that provided employee health care coverage for their workers under a Section 125 cafeteria plan …

Hours equity: The next frontier of wage and hour lawsuits?

09/23/2008

A class-action lawsuit by 15,000 Indiana state government employees has gone forward to determine whether several state agencies and institutions paid workers unequally by allowing some to work 37.5-hour weeks while others had to work 40-hour weeks …

Retaliation claim doesn’t win if it’s filed in wrong court

09/23/2008

An Elkhart employer is off the hook for retaliatory discharge for now—but maybe not for long. Lisa Lubarsky was reportedly a good employee of INOVA Federal Credit Union in Elkhart. But then she sued in a South Bend federal court for retaliatory discharge under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 …

Football coach kills self as police probe messages to student

09/23/2008

Marty Deputy, an English and Bible literature teacher and football coach at Pike Central High School in Petersburg, committed suicide on Sept. 2, hours before his former assistant coach surrendered to police over charges of inappropriate conduct …

Indiana workplace fatalities fell to all-time low in 2007

09/23/2008

The Indiana Department of Labor (DOL) reported that fatal workplace injuries in the state hit a record low in 2007. DOL reported 127 fatal occupational injuries last year, 21 fewer than reported in 2006 …

Showing restraint: Ensuring worker safety with workplace protective orders

09/23/2008

A disgruntled employee is terminated for poor performance. On his way out, he threatens his manager and co-workers. Fortunately, situations like this usually end with the terminated employee cooling off, filing for unemployment and getting on with his life. But what happens when the employee doesn’t let it go? …

Apprentice forms and paycheck deductions

09/23/2008

Q. One of the positions in our manufacturing company has a formal apprenticeship program. To stay accredited, we must submit monthly reports showing the number of classroom training hours in which each apprentice participates. Submission of these forms is mandatory, and yet every month there are always some apprentices (for whatever reason) who fail to submit their forms. Can we withhold a portion of an apprentice’s paycheck at the end of the month until we receive the training reports? …

How do we accommodate an employee’s obvious disability tactfully and legally?

09/23/2008

Q. We have an employee who is clearly disabled. The employee has a very difficult time walking and is unable to stand for extended periods of time.  While the employee has never complained or asked for any form of accommodation, it is clearly affecting both him and his performance. We want to help him, but we are afraid to approach him and suggest he needs help. What can we do? …