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Governor signs Employee Classification Act

10/01/2007

Gov. Rod Blagojevich signed Illinois’ Employee Classification Act into law in early August. The law targets the construction industry with the intent to prevent employers from misclassifying employees as independent contractors. Under the law, people performing construction work are presumed to be employees unless they can meet the ABC test …

Watch what you promise: Michigan employment contracts can be oral

10/01/2007

In Michigan, employers and employees can enter into employment contracts without using written agreements. As long as one of the parties can prove what the terms of the agreement are, a court may enforce the agreement. One way to protect your organization is to have all new hires sign an acknowledgment that no oral promises are binding, and that all contracts must be in writing …

Mandating New-Age spirituality at work can trigger an Old-School lawsuit

10/01/2007

While you can encourage employees to follow certain Judeo-Christian values at work, such as cooperation, honesty and kindness, it’s never appropriate to require adherence to a particular religion or religious practices. Even if your organization’s leaders have strong religious beliefs, it must accommodate workers who don’t agree with that stance. That may mean excusing workers from retreats, prayer groups or other religious-based activities …

New Jersey cracks down on employers that misclassify employees

10/01/2007

Warning! Employers that intentionally misclassify employees as independent contractors face new penalties in New Jersey. Employers that intentionally misclassify workers unfairly stifle business competition because the practice lets them reduce labor costs between 15% and 20%, according to some estimates. That leaves employers that don’t cheat at a competitive disadvantage. Plus, employee misclassification strips workers of benefits and disability protection, and cheats the average taxpayer out of revenue …

Negligent hiring and supervision? That’s a tough case in Texas

10/01/2007

While employees can file negligent-hiring and supervision claims when they suffer trauma at the hands of a rude and crude supervisor, such cases rarely end badly for employers. That’s because an employer’s obligation is reasonable and doesn’t require being clairvoyant …

Fed contractors to pay almost $1M to rejected applicants

10/01/2007

The U.S. Labor Department’s Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs (OFCCP) announced that two federal contractors have agreed to settle allegations of hiring discrimination. Comark Building Systems, of DeSoto, agreed to pay $229,534 in back pay and interest to 740 applicants it rejected for the position of plant laborer. Georgia-Pacific Consumer Products LP agreed to pay $749,000 in back pay and interest to 399 black applicants whom it rejected for the position of utility worker …

How to handle pay for interns

10/01/2007

Q. Must a Texas employer pay its interns? …

State’s Attorney’s job fair recruits minority lawyers

10/01/2007

Responding to criticism that the Illinois State’s Attorney’s Office lacks prosecutors of color, the agency recently held a “Minority Job Fair for Licensed Attorneys.” Former Illinois Appellate Court Justice R. Eugene Pincham alleged in an interview that the state’s attorney’s office had only 40 minority prosecutors out of 950 …

Refusing to hire former criminals: Is it race discrimination?

10/01/2007

Does your organization have a blanket policy of refusing to hire any applicant with a criminal record? If so, make sure you can explain exactly why. A recent Pennsylvania court ruling shows that across-the-board “no ex-cons” policies can quickly run into legal trouble unless you can prove the restriction for a specific position was “job-related and consistent with business necessity” …

Postal career on hold as man can’t get arrest record expunged

10/01/2007

A Pennsylvania man has lost a lawsuit against the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania in which he sought to have the state erase his arrest record. He claimed that the arrest never resulted in a conviction because he was found “not guilty by reason of insanity,” and that the arrest record was keeping him from getting a job at the U.S. Postal Service …