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Employment Law

New Obamacare tweaks benefit employers

05/22/2014
Many of the regulations for implementing the Affordable Care Act are highly technical, and don’t relate directly to the employer-provided side of the health insurance market. However, the feds have recently released rules that employers can use.

Comments don’t have to be overtly sexual to create an unlawful ‘hostile environment’

05/21/2014

The U.S. Supreme Court has said that Title VII gives employees, “the right to work in an environment free from discriminatory intimidation, ridicule, and insult whether based on sex, race, religion, or national origin.” To claim that they worked in a sexually hostile environment, em­­ployees typically need to point to ongoing discrimination based on the person’s gender.

Final ACA info reporting regs: Godzilla meets Frankenstein

05/20/2014
Under final ACA regulations, insured employers with at least 50 full-time employees, including full-time equivalent employees, must file information returns with the IRS to report offers of health insurance made to full-time employees and provide statements to those employees. Key: Small self-insured employers must also report, even though they’re excluded from the play-or-pay provisions.

MTA shocker! Could cronyism, nepotism have led to ouster?

05/19/2014
Charges of cronyism and nepotism followed a Metropolitan Transit Authority security chief out the door following a meeting with the head of the MTA, which runs public transportation in the New York City area.

Former superstars aren’t immune from scrutiny

05/19/2014
The best approach to dealing with declining performance is careful and meticulous record-keeping showing expectations and how the employee isn’t meeting them. Objective facts trump the employee’s feelings that she is being discriminated against for some reason.

Would a disability accommodation work? Test and see

05/19/2014

Let’s say you have an employee who is returning to work from an injury. The ADA requires you to offer her a “reasonable” accommodation, but you want to make sure the accommodation is safe. So you decide to have the employee demonstrate that accommodation to see for yourself. That’s a smart move … just make sure you follow through on the demonstration.

Work stoppages fell as union membership declined

05/16/2014
Union membership has been falling for decades. In 1983, the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) reported that 17.7 million Americans carried a union card, about 20.1% of the working-age population. By last year, that percentage had dropped to 11.3%.

11 employment laws (almost) every employer must follow

05/13/2014
Federal employment laws can be terribly confusing, particularly because they often have different definitions for the size of businesses that must comply. Use the following list to make sure you’re not spending time and money complying with laws that only apply to larger businesses.

Driving change: New N.Y. law targets worker misclassification

05/12/2014
New legislation that went into effect April 10 is intended to curtail misclassification of transportation industry workers as independent contractors instead of employees.

No bling for EEOC: Judge blasts mishandling of bias claim

05/12/2014
The EEOC had one of its long-running cases dismissed after a federal judge in Buffalo criticized the commission’s handling of a discrimination case against Sterling Jewelers.