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A federal appeals court is currently considering challenges to San Francisco’s cutting-edge domestic partner ordinance. The law requires that companies who dobusiness with the city provide unmarried employees who have domestic partners the same benefits as married workers. An airline trade association succeeded in invalidating the provisions of the law covering health and welfare benefits. […]
Gov. Davis has signed into law A.B. 2509, which changes a number of existing state laws affecting responsibility for payment of wages and penalties for violations of employment-related laws. Here’s a rundown on the key provisions of the bill, which takes effect Jan. 1, 2001.
Beginning Jan. 1, 2001, you’re required to report independent contractor earnings information to the Employment Development Department. The new law is designed to track down parents who are delinquent in paying child support. Private and public employers need to report payments made to independent contractors if you expect to pay at least $600 to the […]
The Industrial Welfare Commission has eliminated certain exemptions from minimum wage requirements while retaining others. The changes take effect Jan. 1, 2001, as does the new minimum wage of $6.25 per hour. The IWC did away with existing exemptions for state and local government employees, full-time carnival ride operators, actors, personal attendants in private homes, […]
Xerox Corp. has been cited by the Hawaii Occupational Safety and Health Division for not developing an effective workplace violence prevention program that might have averted a mass shooting by a copy machine repairman that left seven co-workers dead. The agency charged that Xerox failed to train managers to recognize and reduce potential hazards as […]
The Industrial Welfare Commission has issued a new wage order covering the construction, drilling, logging and mining industries. This is the first time these industries have been regulated by a special wage order comprehensively governing wages, hours and working conditions. The new wage order covers, among other things, minimum wage and overtime rules, alternative workweek […]
Scott McFetters was a salesman in the Orange County office of Amplicon Inc., a computer leasing company. When the firm started using a new lease arrangement called an ABC lease, McFetters objected because he thought it wasn’t fair to customers. What happened next resulted in a $870,000 verdict for McFetters against Amplicon, which was recently […]
When RJR Nabisco decided to terminate an overfunded pension program, it purchased an annuity from an insurance company to cover its obligations to beneficiaries and plan participants. RJR then sold the pension fund’s assets, netting RJR more than $43 million. But the insurance company it chose to issue the annuity, Executive Life Insurance Company of […]
Grappling with a chronic shortage of computer programmers and other skilled workers, the high-tech industry successfully lobbied long and hard for an expansion of the H-1B visa program. Employers should face fewer delays in hiring foreign professionals now that Congress has raised the annual limit on H-1B work visas and changed the rules to make […]
Certain hourly computer software employees and salaried nurses are now exempt from California’s overtime rules under a measure Gov. Davis signed into law Sept. 20. The new law takes effect immediately.