Practical HR Tips, News & Advice. Updated Daily.
A plan participant cannot pick definitions from various state or federal statutes and impose them on an employer-sponsored health plan where the plan left terms undefined, if the plan applies a common and ordinary meaning to those terms when asked to justify a claims denial. Applying this rule, a Michigan appeals court affirmed a lower […]
The days when only unionized employers needed to worry about the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) are over, said attorney Charlie Plumb during his presentation at the Advanced Employment Issues Symposium (AEIS) in Nashville. Employers should be concerned about two big changes happening in the NLRB and with labor unions that Plumb believes will become […]
The following is a list of the bestselling hardcover business books as ranked by the Wall Street Journal with data from Nielsen BookScan. 1. Boomerang: Travels in the New Third World by Michael Lewis. The Vanity Fair writer and author of The Big Short: Inside the Doomsday Machine and Liar’s Poker gives a guided tour […]
“The Garden Party” episode was light on employment litigation but heavy on workplace psychology. Poor Gabe. His capacity for humiliation knows no limits. I wasn’t sure he could sink lower than his public dumping at the hands of Erin last season, but then we witnessed his repeated sycophantic toasts of Robert California. Sad, right? Maybe […]
The Forces of ‘Sameness’ Many factors have created the strong pull towards sameness in compensation: Talent shortages in 1996-1999, 2004-2007 Greater availability of data More effective tools to manage data comparisons Regulations and government scrutiny (Why do you pay the way you do? The easy answer is we do it like everyone else, Kochanski says.) […]
By Ralph Nero and Keri Bennett Historically, the character of employment or level of position has been an important factor in determining appropriate severance payments in Canada. Unskilled or lower-level employees have typically been entitled to less severance than more highly skilled and higher-level employees. Some decisions have capped severance for such lower-level positions at […]
Patricia Shiu, director of the U.S. Department of Labor‘s Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs (OFCCP), delivered the keynote speech at the annual meeting of federal contractors and OFCCP representatives for the National Industry Liaison Group on July 27 in New Orleans. The key portions of Shiu’s speech, in which she provided important updates on […]
Last month we covered the emerging issue of discrimination against the unemployed. This month, we follow that up with employment law attorney John T. Neighbors giving his insight on the legal and practical considerations of having a policy that the unemployed need not apply for vacant positions with your company. Legal Implications On the surface, […]
By Sharolyn Whiting-Ralston In today’s world, employers face cultural and faith issues in the workplace. To further complicate matters, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) has begun paying more attention to those issues. A recent case out of Tulsa, Oklahoma, serves as a reminder about your obligations when taking into account cultural or religious differences […]
The number of violent crimes declined 6% nationwide in 2010 from a year earlier, according to an annual report released week by the FBI. Murder and manslaughter offenses fell 4.2% in 2010, reported rapes declined 5%, and aggravated assaults fell 4.1% from 2009. The number of robberies fell by 10%, and the number of property […]