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!
Employers, if you're getting advice like this from your employment lawyer, do you know what time it is? Time to get a new employment lawyer.
"Never give in on unemployment."
This is terrible advice on so many levels. First, an employee who doesn't have even the relatively minimal income provided by unemployment is going to be that much more likely to sue you -- as a matter of financial ...
Good news! The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission recently announced in its 2015 regulatory agenda that it will be issuing proposed regulations on the impact of the Americans with Disabilities Act and the Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act on wellness programs. The proposed regs are expected in February.
To read about the continuing saga of the ADA/GINA and employer ...
Last week, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission filed suit against Wisconsin-based Orion Energy Systems, Inc., over its wellness program and its treatment of ex-employee Wendy Schobert, who was not a fan of the program. The lawsuit contends that the program's health risk assessment is an unlawful "medical examination" and that the company retaliated against Ms. Schobert ...
As promised on Monday, here is my magnum opus regarding the EEOC's new Enforcement Guidance on Pregnancy Discrimination and Related Issues. (Next week, I'll try to get back to spurious sexual harassment lawsuits against Yahoo executives and gift cards to employees who don't go to the bathroom during the work day . . . all that really important stuff.)
This past Monday, July 14, a divided ...
I was interviewed yesterday by Colin O'Keefe of LXBN-TV on the impact of the Supreme Court's Hobby Lobby decision, and I did a "quick and dirty" post on the decision the day it was issued. Since that time, the decision has been sharply criticized in the traditional media and on social media.
Here are six reasons why I think the decision is not the end of the world, even if you are strongly in ...
The Supreme Court, in a 5-4 decision, found today that the contraceptive mandate in the Affordable Care Act, to the extent that it applies to closely-held corporations, violates the Religious Freedom Restoration Act. And in another 5-4 decision, the Court found that the First Amendment does not allow home healthcare workers to be compelled to pay agency fees to the Service Employees ...
I presented a webinar this past Wednesday for the Clear Law Institute on the topic of pregnancy and lactation accommodation. As most of our readers know, many state and local governments are passing laws requiring that pregnant women be reasonably accommodated on the job rather than being forced to take medical leaves of absence until after the baby is born. And we are starting to see some ...
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 ...
As most of you have heard, the Congressional Budget Office reported this week on the effects of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (aka "ACA," aka "Obamacare") on employment.
The media messed up in its first accounts of the CBO report, saying that the Affordable Care Act would result in a loss of more than 2 million jobs. The clear implication, if not direct statement, was that ...
Robin Shea has 30 years' experience in employment litigation, including Title VII and the Age Discrimination in Employment Act, the Americans with Disabilities Act (including the Amendments Act).
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