Practical HR Tips, News & Advice. Updated Daily.
Bad feelings between two co-workers erupt, and one goes on the attack. The other worker could back off but instead defends himself. You fire both employees. But now you have a lawsuit on your hands charging the termination violated the right to self-defense of the employee who defended against the attack. Will the court dismiss […]
Suppose an employee is on family and medical leave to care for an ill family member, but you discover they’re also using the time for their own recreation. Can you discipline or terminate the worker for misusing the leave? We’ll look at a new Cali- fornia appeals court ruling that gives you latitude to handle […]
When an arbitration agreement is silent about whether class actions are permitted, it is up to an arbitrator to interpret the agreement to decide whether a claim can go forward as a class action, according to a new U.S. Supreme Court ruling.Although the mandatory arbitration agreement in this case involved a home loan, the high […]
Many employers lease rather than hire employees to reduce the costs of managing employee payroll and benefits. Leasing firms usually carry workers’ comp insurance on the leased workers, which can save you money and headaches. But as one employer recently found, if you don’t administer your leasing arrangement carefully, you could face expensive legal problems […]
A California Court of Appeal has upheld a multimillion-dollar age bias verdict for a manager who claimed his employer had a long-standing policy of not promoting workers over age 40. We’ll explain what happened.
Regardless of whether your workplace has a formal diversity policy, it’s often hard to determine how and when race can be used as a criterion for hiring decisions. Two major new U.S. Supreme Court decisions offer some guidance. Although the cases deal with university admissions rather than workplace hiring, the court set out standards for […]
Recently, several big-name clothing retailers—including Polo Ralph Lauren, Abercrombie & Fitch, and Chicos—have been hit with charges that policies requiring employees to buy and wear the retailers’ own clothes violate California’s wage-and-hour rules stating that employers must pay for employee uniforms. Now Abercrombie & Fitch has agreed to pay $2.2 million to settle charges brought […]
Bernard Lopez was an employee of Applied Technology Associates (ATA), which provided contract computer services for the Navy. Lopez sued the Navy, charging that it violated the disability accommodation requirements of the Rehabilitation Act, which is similar to the Americans with Disabilities Act, when it turned down ATA’s request for a handicap parking permit for […]
Last year, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled an employee could sue for bias based only on incidents that occurred within the time period for filing a lawsuit. Now the Ninth Circuit has taken this decision one step further, declaring that employees cannot sue over employment decisions that occurred outside of the limitations period, even if […]
The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission has proposed changes to the EEO-1 form, which must be filed annually by private employers with 100 or more employees and some federal contractors with 50 or more employees. The changes would increase the number of categories for reporting racial and ethnic background and split the existing “officers and managers” […]