• The HR Specialist - Print Newsletter
  • HR Specialist: Employment Law
  • The HR Weekly

Employment Law

Holiday parties: 12 tips for making sure liability doesn’t hang over your head

12/01/2009

Every year around this time, the Ghost of Christmas Parties Past comes clanking down the hallway, dragging a chain of liability dread for employers. The biggest nightmare: alcohol-fueled misbehavior and mishaps. Here are 12 tips to ensure that what’s supposed to be the best of times doesn’t turn into the worst of times.

Workers want longer days, shorter weeks? Lower hourly pay may dodge OT obligations

12/01/2009

Sometimes, employees prefer to work longer than eight hours a day in exchange for more days off. Ordinarily, changing schedules to accommodate such a request would mean paying overtime for the additional hours in excess of eight per day under California law. But now, in a unique case, the 9th Circuit has ruled that, in limited circumstances, changing the hourly rate for those who want the longer shifts doesn’t violate the law …

Racially unbalanced workforce doesn’t prove disparate impact

12/01/2009

Employees won’t win race discrimination disparate-impact lawsuits just by showing that their employer’s workforce isn’t racially balanced. They also have to show that the employer applied a specific or particular employment practice that created the disparate impact.

Employees awarded $2M … lawyer blows it day trading

12/01/2009

An Orange County attorney has agreed to plead guilty to two felony charges after frittering away millions of dollars of his clients’ settlement awards—by placing losing bets on the stock market. Sandeep Baweja, sole proprietor of Baweja Law Group, was representing 800 real estate agents who sued their employer for denying commissions and other payments.

What can we do? We accidentally overpaid an employee who was out on workers’ comp leave

12/01/2009

Q. While one of our employees was on workers’ compensation leave, she received disability payments. Due to a clerical error, we failed to take her off the payroll during that time, and she continued to receive her regular paychecks while on leave. The employee now refuses to sign an agreement to return the money on a payment schedule we were willing to set up. As a result, we would like to dock her pay for the overpayments. Are we allowed to do so?

Can an employee opt out of mandatory breaks?

12/01/2009

Q. An employee has asked to work through his two daily 10-minute rest periods because he would like to leave work 20 minutes early. Are we permitted to implement this arrangement upon his request?

H1N1 meets the ADA: Understanding the link

12/01/2009

What health-related questions can you ask employees about H1N1 (swine flu)? Find out on the EEOC’s new Q&A fact sheet, Pandemic Preparedness in the Workplace and the ADA.

Words matter—and can come back to haunt employers sued for age discrimination

12/01/2009

In difficult economic times like these, employers try everything they can to wring greater productivity and profits from employees and work processes. It’s not easy. There’s often resistance from employees who have grown accustomed to doing things the same way they always have. And some of the most intransigent of those employees may be your older workers—and that means potential for legal trouble.

Don’t assume casual laborers are contractors—and don’t neglect workers’ comp insurance

12/01/2009

If your business relies on hiring casual laborers and you routinely pay a set price for a day’s work, don’t assume your workers are independent contractors. If one of them falls or is injured, chances are a court will conclude he’s an employee due workers’ compensation benefits. If you don’t carry workers’ comp insurance, you’ll be on the hook for big bucks.

You can’t unilaterally stop workers’ comp payments

12/01/2009

If you directly pay workers’ compensation benefits because you’re self-insured, remember that you can’t stop paying merely because you believe the employee is no longer disabled. You still have to petition the North Carolina Industrial Commission.