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Safety/Health

What to do when an employee threatens violence

09/02/2008
Q. I work in the HR area at my company and just learned that an employee who is experiencing some personal problems is now having performance problems at work. I also learned the employee has made threats about hurting his boss and a certain co-worker. What should I do? …

Proving the ROI of wellness programs just got easier

08/28/2008

Every employer seems to be jumping on the wellness bandwagon in an effort to curb health care costs. But it’s always been hard for HR to prove its wellness investment is worth it. Reason: the inability to nail down a return on investment (ROI) on wellness programs. Now, a host of new approaches and tools have come to the rescue …

Ex-Worker charged in killings was upset about a reprimand

08/27/2008
Robert Diamond, the fired worker charged with killing two employees at Simon & Schuster’s distribution center in Bristol on Aug. 1, said he had been harassed by co-workers and was upset about being reprimanded in March for calling a black co-worker “boy.” …

Employee showed up tattooed and pierced: Can we now implement a dress code?

08/26/2008
Q. We are a small “mom and pop” restaurant that promotes a family atmosphere. Recently, one of our waitresses got a tattoo on her forearm and an eyebrow piercing. We do not have a formal dress code, but generally we do not want our employees to display tattoos, and we prefer limiting visible piercings to two in each ear. Because we think the waitress’s appearance is inappropriate for our restaurant, we are considering implementing this policy through a written dress code that we will distribute to all employees. Is our planned dress code legal? …

Keep daily injury logs to ensure legit workers’ comp claims

08/22/2008
Employees who hurt themselves at work sometimes wait weeks or even months before filing a workers’ compensation claim. What at first seems like a relatively harmless injury can flare into a debilitating condition months later. Such late claims put employers at a serious disadvantage …

Track which employees have access to hazardous areas

08/22/2008
If your organization manufactures products, your employees probably come in contact with hazardous chemicals or solvents from time to time. Of course, you follow OSHA guidelines and make sure employees on the production line use adequate protective gear. But what if an employee who works in the front office decides her lung or other health problems are work related and files for workers’ compensation? … 

Violating any work rule can be just cause for termination

08/22/2008
Under N.C. General Statute § 126-35, North Carolina state government employees can be discharged only for “just cause,” a term the statute doesn’t clearly define. The vague language can make it difficult to terminate a state employee. But that’s not the case if a state agency has a clear set of rules, can show the employee knew about those rules and broke them anyway …

Employ teens? Child-Labor fines, enforcement on the rise

08/21/2008
Buried in the Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act (GINA) that President Bush signed this year was a little-noticed provision that substantially increased the potential fines against employers that violate federal Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) child-labor laws. If employees under age 18 are killed or seriously hurt due to an FLSA child-labor violation, employers can now face a $50,000 fine for each violation

Imperial Sugar fined $8.7 million in wake of deadly explosion

08/19/2008
Federal officials proposed more than $8.7 million in fines against Imperial Sugar Co., the third-highest fine total in the history of OSHA. The agency fined Imperial Sugar $5 million for violations at its plant near Savannah, where 13 workers were killed in an explosion this spring, and another $3.7 million for violations at its Gramercy, La., plant …

Transportation Companies Face New Drug-Testing Requirements, Starting on Aug. 25

08/12/2008
Starting Aug. 25, organizations that must comply with U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) drug-testing regulations face some new requirements. Specifically, drug testers must directly observe any follow-up urine tests. The goal: prevent employees from cheating the drug test.