Practical HR Tips, News & Advice. Updated Daily.
A new threat facing employers is an increase in complex and costly litigation over the handling of employee benefit plans. The potential liability can be substantial, as Occidental Petroleum recently discovered when it agreed to pay $25 million, plus another $3.5 million in attorneys’ fees and expenses, to settle such a dispute. The class action […]
Jack Epter, a New York City Transit Authority clerk, applied for a promotion to station supervisor. Because the job was physically demanding, the Transit Authority required applicants to pass a physical exam. Applicants over 40 years old also had to undergo an EKG, something younger applicants had to do only if their physical exam or […]
When Dipen Joshi left India on an H-1B visa to work for Compubahn, a Silicon Valley recruitment firm, he signed a contract requiring him to remain with the firm for 18 months or pay steep penalties. He tried to leave for a job at Oracle Corp., but Compubahn demanded $77,000 in fees and penalties under […]
In an important ruling for unionized employers, the National Labor Relations Board has overturned 50 years of precedent and changed the rules for employers who wish to withdraw recognition of a union that may have lost majority support. Under the old rule, an employer could withdraw recognition based on a good-faith belief that the union […]
A number of workplace-related bills considered last year in Sacramento and Washington have cropped up again—and could have a big impact on employers—from workers’ comp reform to a ban on secret e-mail monitoring.
Medina Rene, a butler at the MGM Grand Hotel in Las Vegas, filed a lawsuit claiming that because of his sexual orientation he endured daily harassment by his male co-workers and supervisor. But the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals threw out his case, reaffirming a 1979 ruling that discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation […]
When the Las Vegas Sands Hotel casino closed its doors, it gave workers 45 days’ advance notice, rather than the 60 days required under the federal Worker Adjustment Retraining and Notification (WARN) Act. So the Sands was required to pay workers their wages for the remaining 15-day period. Now the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals […]
California public employees will pay more for doctor visits and prescription drugs in order to hold health care premium increases to 6%, rather than the 15% to 18% hike that had been projected for next year based on HMO bids. The decision by the nation’s largest public pension fund marks a shift toward employees picking […]
First Union Corp. has agreed to pay a whopping $26 million to current and former employees to settle two lawsuits accusing the bank of forcing workers to invest their 401(k) retirement savings in poorly performing mutual funds. The employees charged that First Union included second-rate investment funds in its in-house 401(k) plan and then used […]
When Leslie Kohler sued under California’s Fair Employment and Housing Act claiming that her supervisor at Inter-Tel Technologies sexually harassed her, Inter-Tel said it wasn’t liable because it had taken reasonable steps to prevent harassment and Kohler had unreasonably failed to take advantage of the employer’s corrective opportunities by failing to report the incidents. Kohler […]