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Ohio

Central Ohio’s Delaware County: home of the American dream

05/01/2008
Delaware County, outside of Columbus, is one of the top three places in the country to get ahead, according to a recent list released by Forbes.com …

Gov. Strickland ends flextime for state employees

05/01/2008
Gov. Ted Strickland has put an end to flexible work hours for thousands of state employees, citing the need to provide full staffing during the traditional business hours of 8 a.m. to 5 p.m., Monday through Friday …

AAM strike rocks GM operations across North America

05/01/2008
A strike by workers at five American Axle & Manufacturing Holdings (AAM) plants in Michigan and New York led to temporary closures at more than a dozen General Motors plants in February and March. GM’s Moraine Assembly facility, south of Dayton, ran out of parts mid-shift within a week. GM laid off more than 1,800 workers at the plant …

New state law adds ‘Military status’ to protected classes

05/01/2008
The recently enacted Ohio Veterans Package amends the Ohio Civil Rights Act to bar discrimination based on “military status.” As a result, Ohio employers now face new legal requirements on both the state and federal fronts for how they treat military employees and their families …

Watch what you say during termination deliberation

04/10/2008
Words are easy to misconstrue. Depending on who’s listening, the same sentence could mean at least two different things. This is one of the things that keeps lawyers employed. It’s also the reason it’s crucial to prepare accurate notes about any meeting in which managers are discussing whether to terminate …

Run sales commission language by counsel to avoid needless litigation

04/10/2008
Employees who work on a commission basis and are fired often look to their compensation agreements to find any possible way they can claim additional commissions. Their first stop after the unemployment office is often an attorney, who will go over the compensation agreement with a fine-toothed comb to see whether there is more money to be had …

Age discrimination is hard to prove—But retaliation isn’t

04/01/2008
One of the hardest discrimination claims for employees to prove is age discrimination under the Age Discrimination in Employment Act (ADEA). Retaliation is a much easier case to make. All the employee has to prove is that he complained about discrimination and was punished for doing so …

When serial harasser strikes, you can’t just move victims

04/01/2008
Do you have a serial harasser on your hands? Has the finger been pointed at the same individual more than once? If so, don’t try to weasel your way out of a confrontation by simply separating the harasser from the harassed. You may get away with it once, but you’re courting trouble (and a potentially big lawsuit) if you try it again …

Monitor to make sure harassment really has stopped

04/01/2008
It sometimes happens: Production floor or other entry-level employees lacking a—shall we say—sophisticated outlook on life go a little too far. Perhaps they play a practical joke that is offensive to a co-worker. Someone complains, and HR investigates. The culprits apologize, and everything settles down. Is the organization in the clear? …

Firing shortly after follow-up FMLA care may be retaliation

04/01/2008
As more time passes after an employee takes FMLA leave, courts grow less and less likely to link an adverse employment action to taking leave. That means employees have a harder and harder time proving that being fired, for example, was retaliation for exercising their FMLA leave rights. But be careful …