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Employment Law

Appeals court: Calling someone a ‘contractor’ doesn’t necessarily mean he is one

11/16/2012
A group of newspaper delivery people has won the right to take to court as a class action their dispute over whether they are independent contractors or employees.

Track the training you offer, who qualified–and which employees took advantage of it

11/16/2012

If you offer training to some, you must offer it to everyone else in the same classification who qualifies. Refusing to train some employees may be grounds for a discrimination lawsuit. Prevent such lawsuits by carefully documenting all training offers and how employees respond.

ADA: Have employee suggest accommodations

11/16/2012
Some employees think that merely declaring they have a disability means it’s up to the employer to figure out an accommodation. That’s not entirely true. The ADA accommodations process is an interactive one, requiring input from both employee and employer.

Watch out! Employee who quits can still sue

11/16/2012
Think you can avoid a discrimination lawsuit by making life so miserable that an employee quits, making it unnecessary to fire her? Don’t bet on it.

Are there alternatives to noncompetes for employees who work in California?

11/15/2012

Q. We have employees who live and work in Cali­­for­­nia. We get frustrated that we are not allowed to have them sign a noncompete agreement. Is there anything we can do?

NLRB and social media: Be careful what your policy prohibits

11/15/2012
There are now fewer union members than at any point in the past 70 years. And if employers, unencumbered by collective bargaining agreements, don’t spend much time worrying about unionization, it’s a safe bet that they give hardly any thought to how labor law intersects with the ways in which employees electronically communicate with one another. But there’s a powerful connection between the two.

In Minneapolis, janitorial firm haunted by ‘ghost’ timecards

11/15/2012
Minneapolis janitors working for Diversified Maintenance Systems have received conditional class-action status in an FLSA lawsuit that alleges the company orchestrated a timecard switching scheme designed to avoid paying overtime.

Court nixes multiple suits in different forums

11/15/2012
Courts are getting tough on employees who file multiple lawsuits in different forums by requiring consolidation into one court. Employees who don’t cooperate end up out of court.

Want to cut overtime pay? OK to alter workweek–as long as change is permanent

11/15/2012
Good news for cost-conscious employers: The 8th Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled that an employer is free to change how it designates the workweek as long as it does so “permanently”—even if the sole reason is to reduce overtime pay.

Steer clear of blanket hiring policies that stymie disabled applicants

11/15/2012

Do you have a standard hiring rule that effectively screens out some job applicants? If so, scrap it. Instead, consider each applicant on his or her merits, especially if the rule could harm applicants with certain disabilities.