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Minnesota

Be prepared to grant FMLA leave for diagnosis of serious health condition

12/09/2008

Routine doctors’ appointments such as checkups or annual physicals aren’t considered eligible for FMLA leave, but appointments aimed at diagnosing a condition may be. Employers that know the employee is seeing a specialist as part of the followup to an auto accident, for example, are on notice that the employee may need to take FMLA leave …

It’s OK to ban prescription drugs if you have genuine safety concerns

12/09/2008

Employees who take certain prescription drugs for legitimate medical conditions may be unable to work safely if their jobs involve heavy machinery, split-second judgment or the ability to remain alert. If that’s the case, it’s not disability discrimination to ban employees from working while on those medications.

Stop ‘who said what’ lawsuits: Draft policy disavowing oral pay agreements

12/09/2008

Oral agreements concerning compensation and bonus payments can be enforced in court, and that can lead to tricky “who said what” legal problems. Those are problems you can easily prevent with the help of good legal counsel.

Employee in drug treatment? Consider DATWA before firing

12/09/2008

Do all your supervisors and HR staff understand how Minnesota’s Drug and Alcohol Testing in the Workplace Act works? If not, train everyone now or face the possibility of punitive damages.

Quit or fired? Answer affects whether you pay unemployment

12/09/2008

How an employer handles an employee who doesn’t show up for work can mean the difference between paying unemployment compensation and not being liable.

After sneak peek at budget, commission recoils in fear

12/09/2008

It has been said that nothing can make or break a presentation like a good graphic. The chart that state House and Senate analysts recently showed members of the Legislative Commission on Planning and Fiscal Policy certainly made an impression.

University of Minnesota tries ‘hiring pause’

12/09/2008

Faced with budget woes, the University of Minnesota has decided to control costs “sooner rather than later” with a “hiring pause,” University President Robert Bruininks told the Associated Press.

Meat packer, staffing firm settle with Muslim workers

12/09/2008

St. Cloud-based Gold’n Plump has agreed to pay $215,000 to a group of Somali Muslim workers to settle a religious discrimination lawsuit brought by the EEOC. The company also granted the workers an extra paid break for prayer during the second half of each shift.

With flu season approaching, can we force employees to stay home from work?

12/09/2008

Q. Flu season is coming and we are concerned. If employees have the flu or show flu symptoms, can we require them to stay home long enough to make sure they are no longer contagious? Would we have to pay them for time away?

What should we do about employee’s bright solution to seasonal affective disorder

12/09/2008

Q. With the change in the seasons, an employee who claims to suffer from seasonal affective disorder wants to put up a special lighting fixture by her desk that she says will provide natural-spectrum light. Some employees complained last year when she put up this light that it was bothersome and distracting to them. Do we have to let the employee use the light? What do we tell other employees?