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New York

Lowe’s to offer free employee health screenings

05/11/2010
Home improvement giant Lowe’s is offering free health screenings to its employees. Lowe’s partnerships with health care providers throughout New York mean employees will be able to get free checks of their blood pressure, total cholesterol, triglycerides, glucose, waist size, hip size, weight, height, body fat percentage and body-mass index.

Bias unlikely if new worker is same race as former employee

05/11/2010
Employees who allege they were terminated because they belong to a protected class will have a tough time winning the lawsuit if their replacement belongs to the same class—at least when the new hire comes on board before the terminated employee files her EEOC complaint or lawsuit.

Court to serial litigant: Buzz off or pay!

05/11/2010
A federal court judge has laid down the law to a serial litigant: The next time he wastes an employer’s time with baseless litigation, he’s going to pay.

Tell supervisors and executives: Keep anger to yourself when employee files lawsuit

05/11/2010

Supervisors often get angry when a subordinate files a lawsuit. Sometimes that anger is justified, but supervisors should be careful how and where they vent. The outcome of the lawsuit may depend on how supervisors handle their outrage about being sued. For example, calling a press conference and attacking the employee for suing may not be the most constructive approach.

Limit hostile environment liability by getting to the bottom of every harassment complaint

05/11/2010

It’s up to employers to make sure their workplaces are free of racial harassment. Watch out if you’re not willing to do everything in your power to prevent a racially hostile environment. Courts simply won’t tolerate it. In many cases, it takes only two incidents of harassment for a judge or jury to conclude that a workplace is hostile. That low threshold makes it essential for HR to follow up on every harassment complaint.

New York labor union membership fell in 2009

05/11/2010

According to the latest numbers from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, New York lost 10,000 union jobs in 2009, but greater contraction in the rest of the state’s economy actually raised the percentage of New Yorkers who belong to a union. Private- and public-sector union jobs in New York fell from 2,029,000 in 2008 to 2,019,000 in 2009.

Stop harassment or face personal liability

05/11/2010

Ordinarily, managers who have the authority to make personnel decisions aren’t held personally liable for sexual harassment under Title VII. But that’s not necessarily the case under the New York State Human Rights Law. If you’re an HR professional with the power to make recommendations on hiring applicants or firing employees, make sure you don’t ignore sexual harassment claims that come your way.

OK to base pay on performance–without bias

05/11/2010

If you’re thinking about switching to a production-based compensation system that pays more to the most productive employees, don’t worry too much about the plan’s possible disparate impact on some groups. As long as you don’t use the system to discriminate against a particular group—or favor another—courts are unlikely to conclude that any uneven results were caused by discrimination.

Employee is pregnant? You can still discipline or fire if she violates your policies

05/07/2010
Federal courts don’t have much patience for faulty logic. A U.S. District Court in New York recently issued a particularly stinging rebuke to a nurse whose pregnancy discrimination case hinged on the “fallacious syllogism” that “I was fired; I was pregnant when I was fired; therefore, I was fired because I was pregnant.”

N.Y. Department of Labor issues new WARN Act regs

04/07/2010

The New York Department of Labor has released new Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification (WARN) Act regulations that are more stringent than federal WARN Act provisions. Employers with at least 50 workers (including part-timers) are covered. That means those employers must provide 90 days’ notice of a mass layoff, plant closing or relocation.