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Wages & Hours

Time, room for breast-Feeding moms (Maybe a toilet, too)

11/01/2007

An August amendment to the New York Labor Law guarantees time and space for breast-feeding mothers to express milk at work, but stops short of emancipating them from the lowly toilet stall …

Xerox employees buy time off through payroll deduction

11/01/2007

Employees at Xerox can buy extra vacation time through a payroll deduction. Instead of paying for the extra vacation time all at once, employees can make weekly or monthly fixed-rate installments through payroll deductions …

Don’t blow off legal papers unless you’re prepared to personally pay back wages

11/01/2007

Does your organization have a process in place for handling legal paperwork? If not, you risk a default judgment that could cost big bucks. If your organization is served with a lawsuit and fails to respond, a court may refuse to let it enter a late defense. And if the organization can’t participate, the court will accept as true everything the employee who is suing says in the complaint …

Beware managers who participate in drive to unionize workers

11/01/2007

When union-organizing efforts target a business, managers usually sit on the sidelines. But managers may have sympathies with either side, and their actions could cause problems for either the employer or the union. Your best bet is to rely on professional negotiators and labor counsel …

Principal says he was fired for questioning pay scales

11/01/2007

Lake Ridge Academy, a private K-12 school in North Ridgeville, has been hit with two lawsuits claiming it fired James Whiteman, head of the elementary school, for inquiring about the differences between female and male teachers’ pay …

As ye ask, so shall ye receive

11/01/2007

It’s OK to pay employees more if they negotiate harder during an interview, an Ohio court recently affirmed in a lawsuit against the Grande Pointe residential care facility in Richmond Heights …

FMLA doesn’t require damages if employee can’t work

11/01/2007

Even if an employee has been wronged because his employer denied FMLA leave he was entitled to take, he still can’t just sit around and expect the employer to pay him until retirement age. He must make efforts to mitigate his losses by seeking out work that fits his medical restrictions …

UPS, contractors owe $1.2 million to misclassified janitors

11/01/2007

Nearly 500 Latino janitors who cleaned UPS facilities, hotels and other properties in Illinois and Texas won a $1.2 million settlement for unpaid overtime and back wages. According to the Service Employees International Union, which supported the lawsuit in U.S. District Court, Northern District of Illinois, the janitors were misclassified as independent contractors …

New law targets construction firms that misclassify workers

11/01/2007

Illinois has its sights on construction firms that misclassify employees as independent contractors to save on taxes, wages and benefits. Gov. Rod Blagojevich recently signed H.B.1795, the Employee Classification Act, which automatically classifies construction workers as employees unless they meet one of two exceptions …

Is there an FLSA violation hiding in your company handbook?

11/01/2007

Why bother to wordsmith and labor over every word in your employment policies? Because sometimes an employer’s own pen can create liability. That was the case recently for an Illinois employer that will now go on trial for allegedly violating federal and state wage laws. Exhibit A on the list of evidence against the company: its employment policy handbook …