Practical HR Tips, News & Advice. Updated Daily.
There are dozens of details to take care of in the day-to-day operation of your department and your company. We give you case studies, news updates, best practices and training tips that keep your organization fully in compliance with ever-changing employment law, and you fully aware of emerging HR trends.
For the entire month of February each year, most public and private employers are required to post an OSHA 200 Log in a conspicuous place. This “Log and Summary of Occupational Injuries and Illnesses” calls for details about on-the-job injuries and illnesses that occurred between January 1 and December 31 of the preceding year. Unless […]
The Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs has issued new affirmative action regulations for federal contractors, the first major overhaul of the program in 30 years. The new rules, which took effect Dec. 13, 2000, simplify some affirmative action plan requirements. But they also mandate that every other year all nonconstruction employers fill out an […]
A new law (A.B. 1889) effective Jan. 1, 2001, prohibits employers who receive state contracts worth $50,000 or more from using the funds to assist, promote or deter union organizing. Each time a contractor requests payment from the state, it must certify that it is in compliance with this restriction and it must have records […]
The U.S. Department of Justice and Time Warner Inc. have reached a $5.5 million settlement to resolve a lawsuit charging that since 1990 the publishing giant has misclassified employees as independent contractors or temporary workers, causing them to be denied benefits including health insurance, pensions and employee stock ownership. The company did not admit liability, […]
Calculating overtime is usually a straightforward process of multiplying the worker’s regular hourly rate by one and a half. However, a recent Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals case illustrates that the computation is more complex if you pay an employee a flat rate per day. That’s because you need to figure out what the hourly […]
In the latest example of the trend toward challenging the use of temporary workers by government and private employers, Ventura County’s largest labor union, the Service Employees International Union, has sued the county. The union charges that the county paid hundreds of thousands of dollars in the past year to temporary workers in clerical, maintenance […]
One day after employees voted to be represented by a union, Quadrtech Corp., which employs 118 minimum-wage jewelry assemblers at a Gardena factory, announced plans to move its operations to Mexico and lay off the workers. But a federal judge found that the timing of the move suggested it was an anti-union action and issued […]
A California Court of Appeal has thrown out a $307,000 verdict for an applicant who was turned down for a deputy sheriff job because he was colorblind. But as we’ll explain, the outcome might have been very different—and more costly for the employer—if the case had been decided under the new state anti-discrimination rules that […]
Following on the heels of a recent California Supreme Court ruling that approved mandatory arbitration agreements for employment disputes, California appellate courts continue to enforce arbitration provisions between employers and employees. In the latest case, a California Court of Appeal required the arbitration of an employment claim even though the employee had never signed an […]
Your chances of successfully defending yourself against harassment claims may be only as good as your company’s policy manual, according to a recent Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruling.