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Compensation & Benefits

Small D.C. businesses offer employees big perks

01/06/2014
Extra-small employers in the Washington, D.C., area are offering some oversized benefits to their tiny staffs. Washingtonian magazine gave a shout-out to five of them.

Age Discrimination: ADEA/OWBPA

01/05/2014

HR Law 101: Under the Age Discrimination in Employment Act of 1967, employers with 20 or more workers can’t engage in personnel practices that discriminate against individuals age 40 and older. Most age discrimination cases grow out of wrongful discharge and mandatory retirement policies, but they can involve any adverse change in working conditions …

Offer temp job to driver too injured to drive?

01/03/2014
Q. Recently, one of our delivery drivers was hurt at home and is now unable to drive. Should we offer alternative employment?

Can we withhold double the cost of unreturned equipment from employee’s final paycheck?

01/03/2014
Q. Our employee handbook states, “If you do not return a piece of property we will withhold from your final paycheck the cost of replacing that piece of property.” One of our employees recently quit on the spot. My boss wants to almost double the actual replacement cost of the item. Can we do this?

Pay for voluntary training during lunch?

01/03/2014
Q. If our organization offers voluntary employee training, which takes place during lunch, do we have to pay employees for the time spent attending training?

Parrot Cellular pays $4.2M to stop EBSA squawking

01/03/2014
Executives of Parrot Cellular, a Cen­­tral Valley and Bay Area cellphone retailer, have agreed to pay just under $4.2 million to the company’s em­­ployee stock ownership plan (ESOP) following a probe by the U.S. Depart­­ment of Labor’s Employee Benefits Security Administration (EBSA). Investigators found that company owners had the plan buy company stock at highly overvalued rates.

ACA: Employers, nondiscrimination rules and the Cadillac tax

01/03/2014
For most employers, the substantive provisions of the ACA have been implemented. But employers subject to the ACA’s employer mandate, which takes effect Jan. 1, 2015, have some complicated issues to sort out: How yet-to-be-settled nondiscrimination rules and the looming “Cadillac tax” will affect their benefits plans.

State legislation would bar local sick leave ordinances

01/03/2014
State Rep. Seth Grove has proposed legislation law that would prohibit local municipalities from enacting mandatory leave requirements for employers. Grove’s move comes after Philadelphia’s City Council approved a paid leave ordinance, only to have Mayor Michael Nutter veto it.

Philadelphia Archdiocese freezes educators’ pension plan

01/03/2014
The Philadelphia Catholic Arch­­diocese has frozen a defined-benefit pension plan for its 8,500 parochial school teachers and support staff. The move comes as the archdiocese wrestles with a $150 million pension deficit.

No unemployment after griping about paltry poultry bonus

01/03/2014
A Commonwealth Court has ruled that a veteran professional chicken catcher’s bad attitude was reason enough to deny him unemployment benefits. The man was fired from his job of five years with B&B Catching Services in Northumberland County for persistently squawking about what he perceived as a stingy 2012 holiday bonus.