HR Management & Compliance

States Take the Lead on Employment Law: Here’s How to Keep Up


As Washington gridlock worsens, the states are getting more aggressive on employment law. Here’s a widely used tool to make sure you’re aware of the changes in your state.


Yesterday’s Daily Advisor dealt with whether employment laws that require notice be given to employees about their wage and hour, safety, and other protections also say it must be provided in a foreign language, if you have non-English-speaking workers.


It turns out that not only the federal government but also the states have spoken on this question. New Jersey, in our example, required notice in alternate languages, at the employer’s discretion, for one of its laws. Iowa required that an interpreter be on site if 10 percent of a given workforce spoke a common second language. (The state even has a list of certified interpreters.) No federal law asks that.


This incidence of state law speaking more loudly than the federal in the workplace is growing, fueled by public impatience with political gridlock in Washington. Several states, for example, have now passed laws dealing with illegal immigrant workers. And the National Council of State Legislatures reports that 171 such bills are moving through the process, nearly double the number for the same period last year.



More than 20,000 companies keep up with state law differences from the federal with BLR’s famous What to Do About Personnel Problems in [Your State] program. Choose the exact edition for your state, or D.C. Try it at no cost or risk! Click for details.



More important, when state and federal laws conflict, courts almost always hew toward the version favoring the employee. So you can comply with every federal employment law ever written and still get whacked by a state variation you never knew existed.


And, unless you are an absolute research superstar, you might very well not know about these changes. Unlike the federal government, which conveniently puts all new laws and regulations into the Federal Register, states use a variety of sometimes obscure journals to alert their citizens that the law has changed. These are not widely available, yet officials still expect you to know and to comply, and they will penalize you if you don’t. Ignorance of the law, as usual, is no excuse.


Fortunately, tools are available to keep up with state law changes. One of the most used is the famous “The HR Red Book®” series from BLR, officially named What to Do About Personnel Problems in [Your State]. There are separate editions for virtually every state, plus the District of Columbia, and you receive the exact version for your state.


This program has kept employers apprised of state law and its differences from the federal for more than two decades and is used by more than 20,000 companies. Here are some of the reasons they tell us they like it:


–Presents and Compares Both Federal and State Law on 200 Employment Topics. (Click the Table of Contents link below to see the full list.) For each topic, there’s first a plain-English explanation of what you need to do for federal compliance. Then, right next to the federal, there’s an explanation of what your state requires. This convenient side-by-side format makes differences immediately clear and which law you need to follow instantly understood.


–Topics Alphabetically Arranged. Pick today’s HR challenge, from “Affirmative Action” and “Attendance” to “Wage and Hour” or “Workers’ Compensation” (or “Notices (posting)” in the current context), and it’s easily found. If you can use a dictionary, you can quickly locate the information you need in What to Do About Personnel Problems in [Your State].


–Updated at No Extra Cost. Here’s the feature that saves so much time researching state law changes. Program subscribers get six updates a year, sent in convenient replacement pages that plug right in. And each month you get two newsletters: one national, one for your state. Unlike other services, there is no extra charge for any of this.



6 updates a year are included with your state’s edition of BLR’s What to Do About Personnel Policies in [Your State]. (Others charge extra for updates.) Try the program at no cost. Click for more information.



–Compensation and Benefits Reports. For those with comp and benefits responsibility, the program also supplies BLR’s respected annual comp and benefits survey reports, presenting what other companies in your state and industry are paying in salary and benefits for hundreds of jobs. Separate reports for exempt, nonexempt, and benefits are all included at no additional cost.


–Prewritten HR Policies and Forms. Great timesavers, these commonly needed policies and forms are ready to print and use.


–Low-Cost, Free Trial. The entire program costs just $1.52 a working day and can be used free for 30 days. See the notice below for details. The links below will also show you samples of the various key materials.


Download national section sample
Download state section sample
Download table of contents
Download newsletter sample



State Law Often Outweighs the Federal!
It’s true. You can comply completely with FLSA, FMLA, and other federal law but still get tripped up by state statutes you weren’t aware of. Get the whole picture with your state’s edition of BLR’s What to Do About Personnel Problems in [Your State] program. Try it free! Click to learn more.




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