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Employment Law

Outsourced staff’s race doesn’t prove bias

05/24/2012

Ordinarily, when employees claim their terminations were because of race or other protected characteristics, they try to prove discrimination by showing they were replaced by workers outside their protected class. But if the employer outsourced the work, the racial, sexual or other characteristics of the employees now performing the jobs isn’t relevant.

Warn supervisors: Wage mistakes could mean personal liability–and they would have to pay!

05/24/2012

Want to stop supervisors who allow off-the-clock work or look the other way when employees work un­­paid overtime? Remind them that the Fair Labor Stand­­ards Act allows em­­ployees to sue supervisors who violate the law personally—not just the organization itself.

Attendance discipline: Keep FMLA out of equation

05/23/2012

Here’s a basic way to avoid FMLA trouble: Before punishing employees for poor attendance, double-check to make sure that none of the time they missed included FMLA-qualifying leave. That way, there’s no question about whether FMLA leave was a factor in discipline.

Patience, careful documentation pay off when disciplining underperforming employees

05/21/2012

Reasonable employers always fare better in court than unreasonable ones. That’s one reason to keep care­­ful disciplinary records showing every­thing you did to help an employee perform well despite obvious problems. If he’s ultimately terminated, the court probably won’t second-guess the decision.

Stop overtime abuse with 4 steps, smart policy

05/21/2012

Do your employees understand exactly when they’re allowed to work overtime? Lax overtime rules are wasting billions of dollars at U.S. organizations and triggering more FLSA lawsuits than ever before. Here are four ways to stop unauthorized OT.

It’s not just the feds: States crack down on contractor misclassification

05/19/2012
The DOL  and IRS continue to aggressively enforce laws against misclassifying employees as independent contractors. But a major shift has taken hold in the past two years, with state legislatures and regulators actively taking a greater role in cracking down on companies that misclassify workers as independent contractors.

California Supreme Court rules on handling meal and rest periods

05/18/2012
In April, the Cali­­for­­nia Supreme Court finally issued its opinion in Brinker v. Superior Court. In a major victory for California employers, the court issued clear rules on how and when employee meal and rest periods must be provided.

Under the ADA, you may not have to accommodate absenteeism

05/18/2012
In a case that tested the limits of an employer’s attendance policy, a nurse who had requested an accommodation that would have excused her from her employer’s five un­­planned absences limit has lost her appeal and won’t have her case reinstated. The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the dismissal of the nurse’s lawsuit.

Court limits document access in Cal/OSHA lawsuit

05/18/2012
A state Court of Appeals has ruled that Cal/OSHA does not have to produce 2,200 files covering several years in a lawsuit over enforcement of California’s regulations designed to safeguard workers from work-related heat illness.

Feds probe pay at restaurants in Los Angeles, San Francisco

05/18/2012
The U.S. Department of Labor’s Wage and Hour Division announced in April that it’s cracking down on alleged restaurant-industry violations of the Fair Labor Standards Act in Los Angeles and San Francisco.