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Can An Exempt Employee’s Salary be Reduced if Their Hours are Reduced?

I have a question regarding exempt salaried employees who work 40 hour work weeks. Can their salary and hourly work weeks be decreased? For example if they had $4450 in monthly earnings working 40 hour work weeks, Could I decrease their salary by 20% and now have them work 32 hour work weeks? If this […]

Baucus Unveils Health Care Reform Proposal

After many months of efforts to craft a health care reform bill that would garner at least some bipartisan support, Sen. Max Baucus unveiled today, September 16, 2009,  proposed legislation that has no Republican support as of yet, even from the three Republicans who were part of his efforts to craft a bipartisan bill. As […]

Ohio Bill Would Expand List of Protected Classes

On Tuesday, September 15, 2009,  the Ohio House of Representatives passed a bill to add sexual orientation and gender identity to the list of protected classes under Chapter 4112, Ohio’s antidiscrimination statute, and R.C. 4111.17, which prohibits wage discrimination. The bill, H.B. 176, was introduced into the Ohio House in May and originally added “gender […]

Specter Reveals Possible EFCA Compromise

Senator Arlen Specter, the Republican-turned-Democrat from Pennsylvania, announced on Tuesday, September 15, 2009, at the AFL-CIO convention that he expects Congress to pass a version of the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA) before the end of the year. He referenced a compromise of the controversial bill that he has been working on and added, “We […]

Can We Layoff Employees With the Most Seniority?

This economy has hit our small retail Insurance Agency hard, we laid off an employee May ’08, another at the end of ’08, cut wages—by 15%—last May (’09) and have done many other things to cut our expenses. Unfortunately we need to lay off three more employees next week … two of the three we […]

Employer Liable for Commuter’s Car Accident, Court Rules

If an employee injures third parties while working, his or her employer can be held liable for those injuries. Normally, an employee’s regular commute to and from work is not considered to be “working” time, so employers aren’t responsible for accidents that happen then. A California court, however, recently held that an employee who is […]

“Fruity Friday" and "Veggie Vensday”—Vellness at Mall of America

Only a year and a half into wellness programming, the Mall of America already has seen a wellness “buzz” and health care savings that may be the result of its employee wellness initiative. Susan Amundson, HR director of the mall’s 900-employee workforce (that’s just mall employees–about 12,000 more work in the stores), acknowledges that while […]

Can Corporate Officers’ Duty of Loyalty Limit Their Right to Compete?

The Court of Appeal of Quebec recently overturned a decision of the Superior Court ordering former directors and officers to pay their ex-employer $3,185,148. The damages had been awarded for appropriating a business opportunity of the former employer and for having breached their obligations of loyalty and good faith under the Civil Code of Quebec. […]