Practical HR Tips, News & Advice. Updated Daily.
By Jennifer Carsen, Esq. Just My E-pinion Is safety part of your portfolio yet? In more and more organizations, HR is taking over safety management. Fortunately, HR managers tend to make great safety managers. In fact (don’t tell the safety people), they often do a better job than technical safety experts do.
In a time of economic uncertainty, employers are looking for innovative ways to balance the needs of their workforce with the realities of the post-Healthcare Reform era. Kristen Allison, president of Burnham Benefits Insurance Services, a leading employee benefits consulting and brokerage firm based in Orange County, offers insight into today’s hottest trends set to […]
The California Fair Employment and Housing Commission (FEHC) has revised the proposed regulations to implement A.B. 1825, the law requiring employers with 50 or more employees to provide supervisors with sexual harassment training every two years. The FEHC is accepting comments on the new proposal until July 20, 2006.
The White House reportedly reached a deal with organized labor on Thursday over the controversial “Cadillac” tax found in the U.S. Senate’s health care reform bill. The original provision in the Senate’s Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (H.R. 3590) creates a tax on employer-sponsored high-end “Cadillac” coverage. Under the original provision, the tax would […]
By Lindsey Taylor The issue of employees with environmental sensitivities often arises for Canadian employers. Most commonly, employees complain about sensitivities to strong scents such as perfume. Human rights laws in many provinces accept that environmental sensitivities may be disabilities, to which the duty to accommodate to the point of undue hardship may apply. This […]
Some jobs are just more inherently “harassment-prone” than others — being a Hooters waitress comes to mind. But a recent case shows that even employers in these types of industries have a duty to take prompt corrective action.
Health reform fees that health insurers and self-funded plans must pay in order to fund the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute are “ordinary and necessary business expenses,” and therefore qualify as deductible from federal taxes, a recent IRS memo states. Insurers and health plans will pay the $1 (soon to become $2) per covered life fee […]
By BLR Legal Editor Jennifer Carsen, JD For the past several months, court-watchers have been waiting for the Supremes to resolve a split among the circuits on the Affordable Care Act’s (ACA’s) contraceptive mandate. Today, the court released its long-awaited opinion—without ruling on the merits of the case.
by Timothy D. Edwards On January 1, 2011, new rules for the discovery (pretrial exchange of evidence) of electronically stored information went into effect in Wisconsin. One of the most significant changes is a “meet-and-confer” provision requiring the parties to address issues pertaining to electronically stored information early in the litigation. Back in April 2010, […]
The Obama administration’s health care reform legislation suffered an apparent casualty last week when the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) indicated it wouldn’t pursue implementation of the Community Living Assistance Services and Supports (CLASS) program (also known as the CLASS Act). In a letter to the U.S. Congress about the CLASS Act, […]