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Pennsylvania

What are the rules on letting a former employee see her personnel file?

05/27/2009

Q. Are we required to let terminated employees come in and view their personnel files, or can we copy the information and send it via mail? One of our fired employees has hired an attorney and wants to see her file.

Can we do anything about an employee who files false harassment claims?

05/27/2009

Q. An employee of ours has filed several sexual harassment complaints. But when we have investigated, they have turned out to be false. Can we do something about her?

What should we do? We’re afraid our diabetic employee is a danger to herself and others

05/27/2009

Q. One of our employees, who has diabetes, is on the road a lot tending to patients in their homes. We’ve heard that she is having trouble seeing patient charts and difficulty pricking patients’ fingers for tests. What should we do?

Former aide to Ridge apparently embezzled—again

05/27/2009

Lauretta Simmons was convicted of embezzling $93,500 from then Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Ridge’s campaign in 2000. Ridge went on to become the nation’s first Secretary of Homeland Security. Simmons apparently went on to greater things as well—to the tune of more than $300,000.

Minor adjustments: How to comply with federal teen labor rules

05/05/2009

Your risk of running afoul of the child labor laws has increased, and penalties can be harsh. A recent government study found a surprisingly high percentage of teen employees working longer hours than federal law allows, and also in jobs deemed too dangerous by law. Now, federal and state safety investigators are more interested than ever in child labor compliance.

U.S. workers using less vacation time, survey says

05/04/2009

Online travel agent Expedia.com probably didn’t hear what it wanted to hear when it conducted its ninth annual travel survey. More than a third of workers said they won’t use all of their vacation this year. The primary reason cited? Work-related pressure.

Merely speaking about need for diversity isn’t protected

04/27/2009

Fired employees with vengeance on their minds often go looking for a reason to sue. They often latch on to the charge that they complained about discrimination and then were punished. As the following case shows, it takes more than a casual mention of diversity to constitute a protected action.

Remind managers to note disability disclosures

04/22/2009

The ADA protects disabled employees from discrimination, but it’s up to the disabled employee to come forward. Employers can’t be expected to be clairvoyant. Smart employers find a way to track those disclosures. Here’s an example of why that’s important:

Make sure your investigations are thorough

04/22/2009

Employers have great leeway when it comes to discharging employees. But many employers get into trouble by failing to conduct a thorough and fair investigation. If the employee can prove the investigation was so cursory that it was just an excuse to cover up an illegal motivation such as age discrimination, the employer may lose big.

Turnabout is fair pay: EEOC broke overtime law

04/22/2009

An arbitrator has ruled that the EEOC willfully violated the Fair Labor Standards Act by forcing employees to take comp time instead of overtime pay when they worked more than 40 hours a week. The EEOC will be liable for back pay, plus liquidated damages that so far haven’t been determined.