Posts tagged Wage and Hour.

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! 

Yeah, yeah - I know it isn't even Thanksgiving yet, but you are planning your holiday party now, and you want answers to your burning questions while you still have time to do something about it.

And, as luck would have it, I presented a webinar on Wednesday with David Weisenfeld of XpertHR on "How to Make Your Workplace Holiday Party Sparkle -- With No Legal Hangovers," and got some great ...

NOTE: Because of the Thanksgiving holiday, there will be no post on Friday. Happy Thanksgiving and happy Chanukkah! 

*SARCASM ALERT*

The following is a public service announcement. Only you can prevent your company from having a boring holiday party by following these six steps.

1. Let the wine flow like . . . wine! Alcohol should always be served at  company functions. One can never have ...

After a great holiday feast, isn't it fun just to eat the leftovers? Like a nice, cold roast beast sandwich with a wedge of leftover pie? Yum!

Here are some great labor and employment blog "leftovers" from the holidays that I hope you will enjoy as much as I did, followed by a few new year's resolutions for employers and employees. Please add to my list!

In case you were chillaxin' last week and ...

Don't eat that pretty red apple, Snow White!!! It has poison in it!!!!

You know the old saying, "If it seems too good to be true, it probably is"? Well, it appears that this may be the case with the new "sweet deal" the Internal Revenue Service is offering to employers who agree to reclassify their "independent contractors" [sic] as "employees" in exchange for some admittedly generous ...

Here are the rules, as simply as I can state them:

1. If actual work is performed, you've almost always gotta pay. 99.99999 percent* of the time. This is so, whether the work is performed at the office or factory, at a customer's or client's site, at the employee's home, in the employee's car, in a hotel room, at McDonald's, in a parking lot, in a dark alley, ANYWHERE. And, yes, "work" can ...

John Gallagher, a plaintiffs' lawyer, had a good posting last week on TLNT entitled "Can an Employee Be Terminated for Simply Surfing the Internet?"

The point of the article was that, although this seems to be a legitimate ground for termination on its face, it really isn't because everybody surfs the internet at work. Therefore, terminations for this reason make John very happy ...

As the Thanksgiving holiday approaches, the federal Transportation Security Administration is under fire for imposing full-body scans or pat-downs on the flying public. Although the agency says that the scans/pat-downs are not intrusive and that the privacy and dignity of travelers is protected, two TSA "HR" stories make that a difficult sell.

The TSA has been embarrassed more than ...

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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