Category – Protected Concerted Activity: Employment & Labor Insider

Posts in Protected Concerted Activity.

Who was naughty, and who was nice in employment law this year

By Robin Shea on 12.23.15
Posted in Affordable Care Act, Americans with Disabilities Act, Discrimination, Genetic Information Non-Discrimination Act, GINA, Harassment, Labor Relations, Lawyers!, Pregnancy, Protected Concerted Activity, Retaliation, Safety, Social media, Telecommuting, Wage-Hour

Who's been naughty and who's been nice in labor and employment law? Here are my picks for 2015. Feel free to add your own in the comments.

NAUGHTY!

The National Labor Relations Board, for being naughty in too many ways to mention. Its rules on employer handbook policies, including confidentiality and social media, are unrealistic and almost impossible for employers to legally follow ...

BEFORE YOU FIRE: 20 questions every employer should ask

By Robin Shea on 11.13.15
Posted in Americans with Disabilities Act, Discrimination, Employment at Will, Evidence, Family and Medical Leave Act, Harassment, Labor Relations, Protected Concerted Activity, Retaliation, Safety, Settlements, Unemployment, Workers' Compensation

So you think you're ready to terminate an employee. Are you really?

Here are 20 questions that every employer should ask itself before going ahead with a termination. If you think I've missed anything, please feel free to add your own in the comments.

GETTING STARTED

No. 1. Is the employee covered by a collective bargaining agreement? If so, make sure that whatever you do is consistent ...

Employers may not like NLRB General Counsel report on handbook rules

By Robin Shea on 3.27.15
Posted in Labor Relations, Protected Concerted Activity

Thanks very much to David Phippen from our Metro D.C. Office for letting me get some depositions taken this week and allowing me to republish his analysis here.

As we have previously reported, the National Labor Relations Board in recent years has put employee handbooks and policy manuals under a magnifying glass, searching for any provision that might, in its view, violate the ...

EMPLOYMENT LAW BLOG CARNIVAL: April Fools' Edition

By Robin Shea on 3.18.15
Posted in Americans with Disabilities Act, Discrimination, eLaw, Employment Law Blog Carnival, ERISA, Family and Medical Leave Act, Gender Identity Discrimination, Labor Relations, Lactation, Protected Concerted Activity, Retaliation, Safety, Same-sex marriage, Social media, Wage-Hour

(St. Patrick's Day is sooooo nine hours ago!)

Ever looking to the future, we celebrate the coming April Fools' Day with this month's greatest employment law blog posts. Some of my summaries are accurate, and others are "fools' editions" - you'll have to read the actual posts to know which is which. There are so many excellent posts that I'm listing them in alphabetical order by ...

15 for '15: Employment and labor resolutions for the new year

By David Phippen of our Metro D.C. Office.

While the year is still young, here are 15 New Year's resolutions that employers may want to make:

1. Make sure your "independent contractors" are really independent contractors. "Independent contractors" are under scrutiny by the Internal Revenue Service, the U.S. Department of Labor, the National Labor Relations Board, state and local agencies, plaintiffs' lawyers, and union organizers. A misclassification can cost you back taxes, back pay (including overtime), and back benefits, as well as penalties and interest.

2. Review your email policies. The NLRB recently found that employees generally have a right to use employer email systems during non-working time in support of union organizing and concerted activity. The Board's decision means that many employer email use policies, as currently drafted, would probably be found to violate the National Labor Relations Act if an unfair labor practice charge were filed or a union tried to organize employees and argued that the employer's email policy interfered with the organizing efforts. In light of the new "quickie election" rule that the NLRB issued last month, both union and non-union employers would be well advised to review their email policies and revise as needed. (The "quickie election" rule is scheduled to take effect on April 14, but the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and other employer groups, including the Society for Human Resources Management, filed suit on Monday seeking to block the rule.)

It's not too late to register for our webinar on the NLRB's new rules on "quickie elections" and employee email use. The webinar, featuring labor attorneys Tim Davis, Jonathan Martin, and Dan Murphy, is from noon to 1 p.m. Eastern tomorrow (January 8). Be there, or be square!

5 legal traps for the wariest employer

By Robin Shea on 12.5.14
Posted in Affirmative Action, Americans with Disabilities Act, Employment at Will, Family and Medical Leave Act, Gender Identity Discrimination, Harassment, Protected Concerted Activity, Retaliation, Wage-Hour

You're an employer who tries to do the right thing. But what hidden traps are out there, waiting to grab your ankle and yank you into a lawsuit? Here are a few that cause trouble for even the best employers:

Trap No. 5: Capturing all time worked for your non-exempt employees. We get so accustomed to exempt employees who answer emails at all hours and handle business while driving to and from ...

Who needs HR? We all do.

4.11.14
Posted in Affirmative Action, Americans with Disabilities Act, Background Checks, Blacklisting, Class actions, Defamation, Discrimination, Drug Testing, Equal Pay, Family and Medical Leave Act, Harassment, Labor Relations, Protected Concerted Activity, Retaliation, Safety, Settlements, Social media, Wage-Hour

An article by Lauren Weber and Rachel Feintzeig in Tuesday's Wall Street Journal caught a lot of attention -- it was about companies that have made the decision to do without a Human Resources function.

The idea drew some positive response on Twitter:

HR stifles innovation and bogs down businesses with inefficient policies and processes. http://t.co/5cGRIwHaxR
— Mike Brice ...

Non-union employers should pay attention to the NLRB - here's why

By Robin Shea on 2.13.14
Posted in Alternative Dispute Resolution, Class actions, Labor Relations, Protected Concerted Activity, Social media, Violence

The National Labor Relations Board has taken the position that many garden-variety employment policies violate the law. These rulings place employers in a “Catch 22”—if employers rescind the policies, they could have trouble defending themselves in unemployment cases, wrongful termination lawsuits, or before government agencies like the Equal Employment Opportunity ...

Employers, don't let that "protected" employee hold you hostage.

By Robin Shea on 12.7.12
Posted in Evidence, Protected Concerted Activity, Retaliation, Wage-Hour

Remember that Supreme Court decision involving alleged retaliation based on an oral complaint of violation of the Fair Labor Standards Act? The plaintiff in the case is now going to get a jury trial.

In its 2011 decision in Kasten v. Saint-Gobain Performance Plastics Corp., the Supreme Court found that an informal, oral complaint could be "protected activity" under the FLSA and ...

Obama 2.0: What employers can expect to see in the next four years

By Robin Shea on 11.9.12
Posted in Americans with Disabilities Act, Discrimination, Employment at Will, Equal Pay, Family and Medical Leave Act, Labor Relations, Protected Concerted Activity, Social media

Well! OK!

It's been an interesting week, hasn't it? Congratulations to President Obama on winning a second term. My Election 2012 coverage would not be complete without some labor and employment prognostications for Obama Administration II.*

*Please do not read these again in 2016 to see how accurate I was. I don't want to be known as the Dick Morris of employment law bloggers.

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