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Employment Law

Employee making threats? Know how to legally handle explosive situation

03/28/2012

Some employees are simply difficult to manage. They start arguments and may see harassment or discrimination at every turn. Sometimes they cross a line, implying they could get violent. How you handle their complaints can spell the difference between winning and losing a lawsuit.

Follow 4 tips to comply with FLSA’s overtime regulations

03/27/2012
The FLSA sets strict rules for how you pay employees, including who can earn overtime pay and how much it must be. Fail to follow them and you could wind up on the losing end of a lawsuit, potentially liable for millions of dollars. Make sure your organization establishes practices and procedures that prevent overtime mistakes. Four important tips:

FMLA: It’s not your job to decide whether relative needs your employee’s help

03/26/2012
The FMLA does not give employers the right to decide that an employee’s sick relative has enough assistance and doesn’t need your employee’s help. That argument won’t fly—from a compassion or legal perspective.

Donor’s gift causes OSHA fines for fire department

03/23/2012
The Indian Beach-Salter Path Fire Department faces $10,838 in fines after state OSHA inspectors learned that firefighters had removed 120 ceiling tiles that contained asbestos from a mobile home a citizen had donated for use in the department’s training program.

Greensboro mulls settlement in race discrimination lawsuit

03/23/2012
The city of Greensboro is considering an offer to settle a racial discrimi­­na­­tion lawsuit filed by longtime athletic director Jean Jackson. Jackson, who is black, claims the city regularly promotes white employees to management jobs without openly advertising the positions.

Rocky Mount company faces huge pay lawsuit in California

03/23/2012
Rocky Mount-based Premier Ware­­housing Ventures is being sued over pay practices at its former facility in Jurupa Valley, Calif. Premier no longer operates the facility, but current and former employees have filed a lawsuit alleging wage-and-hour violations dating back to 2003.

Worker returning after leave? Just say, ‘Welcome back!’

03/23/2012
Here’s a tip that doesn’t cost anything to implement and may prevent a lawsuit: When employees return from an illness, medical leave or other absences, make them feel welcome—and don’t publicly focus on any lingering problems.

Watch out if your reorg affects only one worker

03/23/2012
If you terminate a current employee during a reorganization process and then hire someone outside the terminated worker’s protected class, you can count on a lawsuit that will go to trial.

Beware new grounds for wrongful-firing suits: Termination in violation of public policy

03/23/2012
Employees and their lawyers are always looking for new reasons to sue. Lately, there’s been an in­­crease in efforts to cast terminations as public-policy violations.

Stay ahead of EEOC complaint calendar by documenting when employee learns he’ll lose job

03/23/2012

Employees who think they have been wrongly fired face tight deadlines for complaining about discrimination. In North Carolina, they have just 180 days to file an EEOC complaint. What’s more, the clock starts ticking the day the employee learns he is informed he will no longer have a job, not from the last day on the job.