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Maine Voters Latest to Consider Marriage Referenda

Voters in Washington state and Maryland will weigh in on whether same-sex marriage should be legal in their states. Employers in these states — as well as those in adjacent states where same-sex marriage is not legal — would be wise to monitor developments and use the upcoming months to prepare for any possible changes […]

Outside Sales Employees: Bottled Water Distributor To Pay $4 Million To Settle Overtime Claims

In a confidential settlement, a Los Angeles bottled water distributor agreed to resolve a class action lawsuit by paying $4 million to workers who said they were not paid overtime because they were improperly designated as exempt outside sales employees. The workers claimed they were actually delivery drivers, despite their job title of “route sales […]

Job Descriptions: 3 Common Mistakes–and a Tool for Avoiding Them

If anyone questions your layoff selections—and they will—employees’ attorneys are going to scrutinize the job descriptions on which you based your determinations. What will they find? A full set of up-to-date, accurate, and complete job descriptions, right? Well, maybe not a full set—and maybe not all accurate and complete and up to date, either. Here […]

Hot List: Bestselling Business and Investing Books on Amazon.com

Amazon.com updates its list of the bestselling books every hour. Here is a snapshot of what is hot right now, this Monday morning, September 14, in the “General” section of the “Business and Investing” category. 1. Outliers: The Story of Success by Malcolm Gladwell. The author of The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make […]

Religion Bias: Big Verdict for Worker Fired over Head Scarf

A jury in Phoenix has awarded $287,640—including $250,000 in punitive damages—in a religious discrimination suit against Alamo Car Rental brought by the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC). The EEOC charged Alamo with post-9/11 backlash discrimination on the basis of religion when it fired a Somali customer sales representative in December 2001 for refusing to […]

Leave, Contract, Public Policy May ‘Protect’ from Firing

In yesterday’s Advisor, we presented the first two “fire-retardant” categories; today, three more, plus an introduction to a new online training system for your managers and supervisors. Some employees are “fire-retardant”—that is, tricky to fire because of their position, but they’re not impossible to fire. Here are three more categories of employees who may be […]

Apprenticeships Gain Momentum as Effective Learning Tool

Two years ago, when President Obama gave his State of the Union address, he challenged employers and educators to double the number of apprenticeships offered by 2019. They listened. The U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) reports that, since the 2014 State of the Union address, the United States has experienced “the largest growth in apprenticeships […]

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‘The Mom Project’ Raises Millions to Support Back-to-Work Efforts

In a recent post, we discussed an economic letter written for the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco (FRBSF) in which it argued that the gap between U.S. and Canadian policies and structures around support for women working while raising children is the primary contributor to a large gap between the labor participation rate for prime-age women, costing […]