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New York

Thomas Subaru settles hostile environment claim

12/09/2009

Long Island car dealership Thomas Subaru settled with the EEOC after three women complained about a pervasive hostile work environment. All three had been terminated after complaining of unwanted touching, sexually explicit and degrading comments and pornography in the workplace.

Make sure your e-communication policy covers social networks

12/08/2009

The widespread use of blogs and social networking web sites such as Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn and Twitter has employers worried about what their employees are keyboarding and texting. Employers must develop electronic communications policies to cope with the new technology.

Don’t sweat perfection when investigative honesty is enough

12/01/2009

Employers often agonize over whether their workplace investigations are thorough enough. They worry that they somehow have to ascertain the absolute truth and can’t make any mistakes. Relax. As long as your investigation is reasonable, courts won’t interfere—even if your conclusions were wrong.

H1N1 virus alert: Complying with the ADA during an emergency

11/13/2009

The H1N1 influenza virus has added a note of urgency to the need to understand the ADA’s privacy requirements. Although some of the rules are relaxed in emergencies, employers that use confidential medical information to discriminate against workers will have to answer in court for their actions.

Don’t automatically grant FMLA leave for stress

11/09/2009

Employees often claim their jobs stress them out. And for some, it’s so bad they feel they need to take off work for a week or so to cope. That doesn’t mean, however, that they’re automatically entitled to use FMLA leave.

Give disabled workers a job, not a promotion

11/09/2009

Occasionally it’s impossible to find an accommodation that will allow a disabled employee to continue to do her current job. That’s when employers must consider the possibility of transferring the employee to an open job she can perform. That doesn’t mean, however, that employers must give a promotion to the employee if the only open position is higher up.

New law: N.Y. employers must spell out pay for new hires

11/09/2009

An amendment to Section 195(1) of the New York Labor Law now requires New York employers to give new employees written notification of their regular and overtime rates of pay and their regular payday.

What’s a disability? New EEOC regs explain ADA Amendments

11/09/2009

The EEOC has finally issued 93 pages of proposed regulations explaining how employers should implement the ADA Amendments Act (ADAAA), which took effect on Jan. 1. The ADAAA expands the definition of “disability,” allowing many employees to be protected under the ADA for the first time.

Be ready to explain male/female pay disparity—dating back to the time salaries began to diverge

11/09/2009

Since Congress passed the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, employers have again been in the position of having to defend paying men and women differently—and sometimes that means going back many years, to the time when pay scales began to diverge. If you can’t show a court that the decision you made years ago was legal under the Equal Pay Act, the employee may win.

Employee may be gone, but e-mails requesting ADA accommodations must live on

11/09/2009

Here’s a record-keeping requirement you may not be aware of: Employers must keep any written requests for ADA accommodations for at least one year. That includes requests received via e-mail. If you routinely purge information from computer hard drives or servers when employees quit, are fired or retire, you may be in violation of the requirement.