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Employment Law

No disability discrimination if worker isn’t qualified for job

04/01/2007

A hospital secretary who suffered chronic arm pain after puncturing her thumb with a contaminated pin recently lost her disability-discrimination lawsuit …

Separation agreement protects employer from age bias claim

04/01/2007

A 55-year-old employee whose job was eliminated in a company restructuring recently lost his age-discrimination case before the 6th Circuit Court. Reason: He had signed a separation agreement waiving all claims against the company …

After merger, must we hire worker who’s on FMLA?

04/01/2007

Q. We bought a company and agreed to consider hiring the seller’s employees. We interviewed and hired some of them. One of the employees was out on FMLA leave and is telling us that we have to hire him. We looked at his work record and we would never hire him. Do we have a potential problem? —R.L.B.

Can we offer wage hike to head off union campaign?

04/01/2007

Q. We are a nonunion company and obviously would like to stay that way. We gave a very modest wage increase six months ago, and we just learned that another company in the same industrial park got hit with a union organizing campaign. I think we should be proactive. Normally we review wages every 12 months, but I want to recommend to my management team that we break that cycle and do a wage increase now. Can we get in any trouble by going ahead with a wage increase now, even though it’s not in keeping with our regular practice? —C.O.

Quick fix can help avoid harassment liability

04/01/2007

Q. One of our male supervisors fired what we in HR thought was a poor-performing female employee. During the exit interview, the terminated employee told us that her supervisor fired her because he was sexually harassing her and she threatened to report him if it didn’t stop. It turned out that her claim was legitimate. We immediately called her back to work.

We thought we had dodged a bullet but, unfortunately, we’ve been contacted by her attorney, who threatened a lawsuit unless we agree to settle her claim for a lot of money. We will contact an attorney to represent us, but we want to know if the fact that we brought her right back to work is going to make a difference? —L.W.

Should you pay employees to change unhealthy behaviors?

04/01/2007

Cash is king when it comes to wellness incentives. Studies show that the almighty dollar is the best motivator for employee participation in wellness activities, followed closely by reductions in health insurance premiums …

Avoid these 5 telecommuting liability pitfalls

04/01/2007
As telework’s popularity grows, so do legal concerns for employers. To lower your risks, devise a telecommuting policy that protects you on these fronts.

Pension law makes it OK to help employees choose investments

04/01/2007

No matter how highly educated your employees are, they’re probably not professional investment experts. Yet it’s likely your organization has shifted responsibility for retirement savings to those employees. But now the Pension Protection Act of 2006 makes it safe for employers to arrange for employees to receive personalized, specific advice on investments …

Make sure employees know about internal job openings

04/01/2007

It pays to make every effort to publicize job openings to your current staff and make clear how employees should apply. If you don’t, you face potential discrimination claims …

Look beyond employee’s VA disability status to determine if he’s disabled under ADA or state law

04/01/2007

Just because the Veteran’s Administration (VA) considers a former soldier to be disabled, that doesn’t automatically mean that person is disabled under other laws, such as the ADA …