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Employment Law

Partner or employee? Degree of control matters

08/25/2010
If yours is a business engaged in professional practices like law, medicine or accounting, your organization may have partners or shareholders who receive paychecks. Know that such shareholders probably can’t sue for discriminatory practices under Title VII and other anti-discrimination and employment laws.

Fear lawbreaking? Document before firing

08/25/2010

Some employers don’t necessarily want to confront an employee directly when they suspect that he may be engaged in illegal activity. The threat of violent reprisal is very real. If you fire the employee, he may sue, alleging some form of discrimination. But if you have documented why you did what you did, chances are the lawsuit will be dismissed.

Can I be personally liable for misclassification?

08/24/2010
Q. Let’s say I do the payroll for a company and know that we are misclassifying employees (exempt vs. nonexempt; independent contractors vs. employees). And let’s say I advised the owner, but he chose to leave it as is. Could I be held liable as the payroll administrator?

5 tips to avoid liability for benefit plan mistakes

08/24/2010
Anyone with responsibility for health, benefit, disability, severance, education or other benefit plans is a “fiduciary” and can be held personally liable for plan errors under ERISA. Attorney Sherwin Kaplan says employers should take these steps to avoid errors that could subject a fiduciary to liability:

With EFCA on the ropes, unions shift their focus to the NLRB

08/23/2010
As we approach the Nov. 2 midterm congressional elections, chances for passage of the Employee Free Choice Act grow dimmer and dimmer. But that hasn’t diminished unions’ push for EFCA-like reforms through the National Labor Relations Board—especially now that a solid three-vote majority of former union lawyers is serving on the board. The battleground clearly has shifted to the NLRB.

California workers ratify union contract with DPA

08/23/2010
California-based members of the International Union of Operating Engineers (IUOE) have ratified a two-year labor agreement with the California Department of Personnel Administration (DPA).

NLRB schedules union vote for 45,000 Kaiser workers

08/23/2010

The National Labor Relations Board in August approved plans for a mail ballot election to begin Sept. 13 for tens of thousands of Kaiser Permanente employees throughout California. The election will determine if the workers at the health care giant will be represented by one of three unions. Kaiser employees also have the option of voting for no union representation.

UC postdoctoral researchers reach tentative agreement

08/23/2010

On Aug. 1, a union representing postdoctoral researchers at the University of California reached a tentative collective-bargaining agreement. The five-year pact between the university system and Postdoctoral Researchers Organize/UAW (PRO/UAW), which represents 6,500 postdoctoral researchers in the UC system, calls for pay increases of at least 3% per year from 2010 to 2015 for researchers earning less than $47,000.

State Supreme Court rules on minority and female preference

08/23/2010
Some local California governments have to give preference to minority- or female-owned contractors. Now in an odd twist, the California Supreme Court has said that such preferences are legal only if the local government can show it does in fact discriminate. That could end such preferences.

It’s not whistle-blowing! Challenge minor complaints

08/23/2010
Some employees think that every complaint they make to their employers is a protected whistle-blowing complaint. That’s just not true. Case in point: