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Employment Law

Keep lawsuit clock on your side: Make sure employees know exact date of employment action

04/25/2011

Employees only have a short period of time to file their initial dis­crimi­na­tion claims. The clock starts ticking as soon as the employee knows or should have known about some material, potentially adverse job change. That’s why you need to be absolutely clear to employees when you make a job change—and note it in your files.

Beware retaliation long after bias complaint

04/25/2011

Think retaliation won’t be a problem because plenty of time has passed since an employee complained about alleged discrimination? Think again! Always be on the lookout for possible retaliation, no matter how long it has been since the initial complaint.

Training not working? Time to try demotion

04/25/2011
Not every employee is suited to promotion—something that may not become clear until far into the process. That’s why smart employers set reasonable expectations for training success and remain prepared to demote those who don’t make the cut.

Medical exams: When can you require them?

04/25/2011

You may have heard that employers aren’t permitted to force employees to submit to medical exams because they could reveal a disability. And courts often see impromptu medical exams as thinly veiled attempts to push employees out the door. While pre-employment, pre-job-offer medical exams are barred, there are times when medical exams for existing employees are fine.

New bill would ban job bias based on unemployment status

04/22/2011
New Jersey this year became the first state to pass a law that forbids employers from requiring job applicants to be currently employed. Now legislation introduced in Congress—the Fair Employment Act of 2011—would amend Title VII to add “unemployed status” to the list of categories protected from job discrimination.

NLRB presses first case involving Twitter posts

04/22/2011
The National Labor Relations Board last month said it planned to file a complaint against media firm Thompson Reuters for reprimanding a reporter over a Twitter post that criticized management. The NLRB settled a similar case in February involving a worker fired for Facebook postings critical of her boss.

Can we rearrange worker’s hours to avoid OT?

04/21/2011
Q. We have laborers who work from 7 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. Monday through Friday. A job needs to be done on a Saturday. We want to ask the employees to take time off later in the week once they have hit 40 hours. Are we able to ask them to do that?

What’s the law on granting time off for workers who want to attend kids’ school activities?

04/20/2011
Q. Several of our employees have requested time off for their children’s end-of-year school events. What is our obligation to grant workers this time off?

Are there any legal issues to consider now that we’re hiring only ‘careful’ workers?

04/20/2011
Q. Recently, several employees suffered work-related injuries shortly after we hired them. As a result, our workers’ compensation premiums have soared. The company’s CEO, in an effort to avoid this problem, has directed us to hire only “careful” workers in the future. Is this legal?

What can we ask job applicants? We want to make sure they can physically perform the work

04/20/2011
Q. We are looking to hire several new workers in our receiving department. The job will require lifting heavy boxes. Can we ask applicants about any current medical conditions or disabilities that would prevent them from doing so? Can we ask applicants to pass a physical test to see if they can fulfill the requisite job duties?