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Employment Law

Lund Boat gets on board with hiring female applicants

10/12/2012
New York Mills-based Lund Boat and parent company Brunswick Corp. have agreed to settle sex discrimination charges filed by the U.S. Department of Labor’s Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs.

Lying to the EEOC isn’t grounds for defamation suit

10/12/2012
Good news for employers faced with a former employee who tries to add defamation to his case based on alleged employer misrepresentation. What you say to an agency like the EEOC can’t be grounds for a separate defamation action.

Feel free to fire! There’s no reason you have to tolerate threatening behavior

10/12/2012
Have you had it with an em­­ployee who can’t seem to get along with others and who constantly tries to intimidate co-workers? If warnings don’t help, fire him.

There’s just no guessing about cross-dressing: Focus hiring on qualifications, not appearance

10/12/2012
While a man who wears dresses and makeup might make his orientation or self-image perception clear, that’s not true of a woman who dresses like a man, at least not according to a recent 8th Circuit Court of Appeals decision.

No ’50 state club’ for us! Barkeeps cry harassment

10/12/2012
Two former Hilton Minneapolis bartenders are suing the downtown hotel, claiming they were punished for spurning a female manager’s sexual overtures and then complaining about sexual harassment.

8th Circuit relaxes meal break pay requirements

10/12/2012

The DOL says meal times are paid time unless employees are completely relieved of their duties during breaks. The 8th Circuit says the correct rule is that employers can require employees to be ready to work during meal times without affecting its unpaid status. This is known as the “predomi­nantly for the benefit of the employer” standard.

ADA: Stand by truly essential job functions

10/12/2012
Courts usually defer to an em­­ployer’s designations of essential job functions as long as there’s a clear, reasonable explanation of why they are essential. That’s true even in compelling ADA cases where it’s clear a disabled employee is capable and could do the job if only she didn’t have to perform just one of those functions.

Can we require a diagnosis on a doctor’s note?

10/11/2012

Q. Our policy says that if employees are out due to illness or hospitalization for three days or more, they must provide a doctor’s note that includes a diagnosis. Someone said we can’t demand the diagnosis. Is this true?

Assigning ‘too much’ work? Beware lawsuit for encouraging unpaid labor

10/10/2012
You may be tempting fate—and an FLSA class-action lawsuit—if your managers are demanding so much productivity from employees that they can’t reasonably get everything done in the time you allow. The problem: Nonexempt employees may feel compelled to work off-the-clock.

NLRB continues its attack on neutral employment policies

10/09/2012
The NLRB has continued its assault on garden-variety em­­ploy­­ment policies, issuing three decisions in recent weeks, each of which concluded that facially neutral employment policies violated employees’ rights to engage in protected concerted activity.