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Terminations

Do temporary employees count for WARN Act?

11/01/2007

Q. Our company may be closing a small facility in which 25 regular employees and 50 additional temporary employees work. Do we include the temporary employees when we decide whether we must give a WARN Act plant-closing notice? …

Unemployment following a strike

11/01/2007

Q. We are a small, nonunion parts supplier for a large, unionized manufacturing plant. Due to an ongoing strike by our primary customer’s union, demand for our product has decreased significantly, and we are having difficulty meeting payroll. Consequently, we are preparing to lay off several of our staff. Our CFO remembered reading that in Indiana, someone who loses his job due to a strike is not eligible for unemployment compensation. But, because the only reason we are laying our people off is due to the strike at our customer’s facility, can we contest unemployment for our laid-off staff? …

Satellite offices may not count for WARN layoff notice

11/01/2007

The Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification (WARN) Act requires employers to provide 60 days’ notice before a plant closing or a mass layoff involving 50 or more employees at a “single site of employment.” Employees have tried to argue that satellite offices should be included to determine if WARN notification was due …

IT administrator who planted ‘Logic bomb’ pleads guilty

11/01/2007

Yung-Hsun “Andy” Lin, a former systems administrator at Medco Health Solutions, pleaded guilty to planting a “logic bomb” on the company’s computer network because he suspected he was about to be laid off. The malicious software, a string of coding that would have wreaked havoc on the company’s systems, was set to detonate on Lin’s birthday …

Court: If employees hold the job, they’re ‘Qualified’

11/01/2007

Employers are finding it harder to get age discrimination cases dismissed early. They also are learning that beating age discrimination suits requires rock-solid evidence of fair and equal treatment—and a genuine, legitimate reason for discharging the employee that has nothing to do with age …

Can we deduct money owed from employee’s last paycheck?

11/01/2007

Q. An employee of ours owes the company about $450. He rented a car using our company charge card and never repaid us. Now he has submitted a resignation letter. Can we deduct the $450 from his final pay? …

Columbus cop quits following furor over YouTube tirade

11/01/2007

A Columbus patrol officer resigned after coming under fire for a series of hostile homemade videos she broadcast on the web site YouTube.com. In the videos, the officer and her sister called blacks, Jews, Cubans and illegal immigrants “filthy” and “scumbags” …

$15,000 convinces employee to drop complaint and leave

11/01/2007

A man who landed a job with the Penn-Harris-Madison (P-H-M) School Corp. after fleeing Hurricane Katrina has agreed to drop his race discrimination complaint in exchange for $15,000. As part of the agreement, the man will resign …

Circuit City sued for male-on-Male sexual harassment

11/01/2007

 Two male employees at a Circuit City store in Delaware County have filed a suit alleging their male manager engaged in a campaign of sexual harassment. It started with the manager tickling their palms with his middle finger, then escalated to unwanted shoulder massages, comments about oral sex and groping …

 

Prevent ‘Survivor syndrome’: Avoid turnover after layoffs

10/16/2007

Issue: After a round of layoffs, remaining employees will wonder "Who’s next?"
Risk: That insecurity can cause layoff survivors to "fire themselves" and seek greener pastures elsewhere.
Action: Don’t …