Author: Dan Oswald

Don’t let fear of failure stop you from taking risks

by Dan Oswald I guess we’re all afraid of something. When we were kids, we might have been afraid of the dark or monsters under the bed. As adults, those fears often seem bigger or more real. We may have a fear of heights, the outdoors, or even failure. The problem is that fear puts […]

Workers’ comp changes for post-traumatic stress disorder claims

by Brandon Wiebe A second Canadian province, Manitoba, recently amended its Workers Compensation Act to create a rebuttable presumption that claims for post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) are work-related. But Manitoba’s law is novel in that it applies to all workers, regardless of occupation.

U.S. Women’s National Soccer Team Alleges Gender Wage Discrimination

Five star players of the U.S. Women’s National Soccer Team (Carli Lloyd, Alex Morgan, Megan Rapinoe, Becky Sauerbrunn, and Hope Solo) made headlines this week by filing a charge of discrimination with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission alleging gender wage discrimination against the U.S. Soccer Federation.  In their charge, the players allege that they should be […]

Employers should continue using expired Form I-9 until new version is available

The current revision of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) Form I-9 expired March 31. However, USCIS has instructed employers to continue using this version of the form until a new revision is approved. Meanwhile, revisions to Form I-9 have been proposed, but the new form cannot be finalized and adopted until the public has […]

Mississippi passes broad anti-LGBT law

On April 5, Mississippi Governor Phil Bryant signed a bill that provides businesses, religious organizations, and individuals with legal protection for refusing to provide services to LGBT individuals. The new law provides “certain protections regarding a sincerely held religious belief or moral conviction for persons, religious organizations and private associations” that refuse services to LGBT […]

Employers starting to see resume gaps as not so bad after all

Employers once considered a gap in employment as justification for tossing a résumé on the rejection heap. Workers deciding to leave promising careers were thought to lack drive. Plus, while they were on a break, the workplace was changing, leaving them out of the loop and behind the times. But a growing number of employers […]

Political speech in the workplace

by Thomas J. Lloyd III This election season has already proven to be, in certain respects, more animated than any that has ever come before. An ever-changing political landscape, fueled in large part by social media activism, has brought once-foreign political issues directly into the homes and workplaces of nearly every American. As the primaries […]

Compulsory public-sector union dues survive deadlocked Supreme Court

A 4-4 U.S. Supreme Court ruling in a closely watched case on public-sector unions leaves previous legal precedent intact, effectively sealing a union victory. On March 29, the evenly split Court issued a one-sentence ruling in Friedrichs v. California Teachers Association that allows the decision of the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals to stand. […]

Effort to push California minimum wage to $15 reported

Most California employers will see the state’s minimum wage reach $15 an hour by 2022 if reports of a deal in the state legislature materialize as expected. Reports in the Los Angeles Times and The Sacramento Bee on March 27 tell of a tentative deal between state lawmakers and union leaders that would phase in […]

Give your 2016 “to do” list a good spring cleaning

by Dan Oswald Spring has sprung. The grass is green. The flowers are blooming. The trees are in full blossom. It’s that time of year again. Time for spring cleaning. Out with the old and in with the new. At least that’s my wife’s way of thinking. Last weekend, we spent a day cleaning out […]