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Indiana

Has accusatory pizza man made his final delivery?

08/26/2008
Two men went to a Papa John’s in Westfield to pick up a pizza. After they left the store, delivery driver Kelly Tharp told co-workers that one of the men had pulled out a gun. Tharp repeated his story to local police, describing the men’s car and offering a license plate number. The men sued Papa John’s for defamation, negligent hiring and related claims …

Gas pains: Implemented properly, telecommuting can be win-Win

08/26/2008
During this period of high gas prices, telecommuting could help employees cut commuting costs. With the right kind of phone and computer equipment, many workers can do their jobs as effectively from home as they can from their usual work sites. Employers benefit from increased productivity and lower absenteeism, higher retention rates and better employee morale …

Employee showed up tattooed and pierced: Can we now implement a dress code?

08/26/2008
Q. We are a small “mom and pop” restaurant that promotes a family atmosphere. Recently, one of our waitresses got a tattoo on her forearm and an eyebrow piercing. We do not have a formal dress code, but generally we do not want our employees to display tattoos, and we prefer limiting visible piercings to two in each ear. Because we think the waitress’s appearance is inappropriate for our restaurant, we are considering implementing this policy through a written dress code that we will distribute to all employees. Is our planned dress code legal? …

Is it legal to discipline an employee for tardiness by suspending her without pay?

08/26/2008
Q. I work in HR at a customer call-in center. To make sure we have enough coverage to handle calls, we have a strict tardiness policy. Recently, one of our customer service agents was late for work several days in a row. She is an otherwise outstanding performer and we don’t want to fire her. In the alternative, we would like to suspend her for one week without pay. Is that legal? …

Could a court order force us to compromise our employees’ privacy?

08/26/2008
Q. I heard that Google is being forced to hand over YouTube access logs to Viacom as evidence in a copyright suit. This seems like a major privacy issue. Our company provides free health information to our employees over the Internet. Our internal web site users have created employee profiles that include personal information such as their names and e-mail addresses. Could we be forced to hand over our user information if we ever became involved in litigation? …

Is video surveillance of employees legal?

08/26/2008
Q. My family owns a chain of electronics stores. We suspect that employees have stolen some merchandise. We want to install surveillance cameras in our inventory storage room and possibly near the back door of the store where the theft occurred. Are there any legal issues that we should take into consideration? …

Document promotion rationale to derail claims from runners-Up

08/13/2008
Employees who complain about discrimination or offer to support another’s discrimination complaint sometimes fear that doing so will blacklist them from promotions or raises. When they, in fact, lose out on promotions, those denials can confirm their fears—and prompt them to file lawsuits. You can put a stop to that by making it absolutely clear why you chose to promote the person you did …

Tracking all discipline makes it easier to defend lawsuits

08/13/2008
Employees who are fired frequently sue, alleging some form of discrimination. A fired employee may say, for example, that she was treated differently than her male co-worker who allegedly committed the same workplace offense. Smart employers keep careful track of all disciplinary actions and use progressive disciplinary programs to differentiate among employees …

Keep exact timecards, or court will use worker’s estimate

08/13/2008
Here’s an incentive to make sure you account for every hour your nonexempt employees work: If an employee claims you didn’t pay her what you were supposed to, and you don’t have accurate time records, the court will calculate what you owe based on the number of hours the employee tells the court she worked …

Tell managers: No discrimination for in vitro fertilization

08/13/2008
The Pregnancy Discrimination Act (PDA) prohibits discrimination “because of or on the basis of pregnancy, childbirth or related medical conditions.” Until now, it was an open question whether that law covered fertility treatments. Now the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled that employers can’t punish female employees for undergoing in vitro fertilization …