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Employment Law

Is your employee’s doctor an ‘FMLA specialist’?

01/29/2010

It happens more often than you might think. An HR office begins receiving an unusual number of FMLA certifications from the same doctor. The sudden deluge happens during peak production times and/or when employees are required to work mandatory overtime. It all points to what amounts to a scam.

The inaccessible break room and the ADA

01/29/2010

Q. Our break/locker room is located upstairs. We have several employees (age 66 to 77) who are having trouble climbing the steep stairs due to advancing age. We’re afraid they’ll fall. They all say they’d crawl up the stairs before they quit.

Hunch about societal racism isn’t enough to make bias case

01/27/2010

With poor economic times come layoffs and reassignments. When these adverse events hit home, some employees may suspect they’ve experienced discrimination. But unless they have something concrete to hang their cases on, courts will toss out such cases.

Eagles’ Vick still dogged—this time by pension woes

01/27/2010

Philadelphia Eagles backup quarterback Michael Vick may be back in the NFL, but the litigation continues. The Employee Benefits Security Administration discovered that pension funds in one of Vick’s companies were improperly diverted to Vick to pay his criminal restitution. Now Vick must pay $400,000.

Prof at California University alleges gender discrimination

01/27/2010

A psychology professor at the state-run California University of Pennsylvania has filed a lawsuit claiming that pressure from higher-ups has kept her from being promoted.

Understand how whistle-blower laws affect employers, employees

01/27/2010

Whistle-blower statutes are designed to protect employees who report their employers for violating civil regulations or criminal laws. But that can seem like a risky proposition for employees, who may fear that reporting their employer to the authorities could cost them their jobs. That’s why whistle-blower laws exist …

How should we handle mandatory overtime when determining FMLA leave hours?

01/27/2010

Q. Can an employer deduct or count overtime hours from an employee’s FMLA balance? Our employees work overtime only from October through December. During that time, they’re required to work 12-hour days, seven days a week. We have several employees on both continuous FMLA and intermittent leave, and we’d like to deduct the overtime hours they would have worked from their FMLA allotment. What do you think?

What are the notice requirements when moving someone from exempt to nonexempt?

01/27/2010

Q. We’re planning to demote an employee for performance reasons. He’d move from a supervisory job (salaried/exempt) to an hourly job, so we would cut his pay by about $10,000 a year. What kind of notice must we give him regarding the pay cut and exemption status?

OSHA focusing on ergonomic injuries; will require reporting

01/25/2010

The on/off battle over ergonomic injuries is on again … OSHA says it plans to propose a rule requiring employers to report work-related musculoskeletal disorders (WMSDs) in a new column on their Form 300 workplace injury logs. Could this be a first step toward a broader ergonomics standard?

Fair treatment wins when whistle-blower sues

01/25/2010

Sometimes employees believe that reporting potential wrongdoing by their employers or fellow employees means they can’t be punished. In effect, the assumption is that being a whistle-blower gives them a pass and protects them from adverse employment actions, such as termination. That’s simply not true.