Additional efforts to employ disabled people proposed by Senator
by Burton J. Fishman Over the past 35 years, perhaps the greatest expansion in civil rights has inv
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News Notes: Ninth Circuit Says Alter-Ego Employees Jointly Liable for Unpaid Wages
According to a new Ninth Circuit ruling, a group of health care employees who worked more than 40 hours a week, with the time split between two employers, was eligible for overtime pay because the companies qualified as a single enterprise. The two companies, A-One Health Care and Alternative Rehabilitation, had substantially merged their operations […]
California Employers Need to Adjust Plans to Accommodate Same-sex Spouses
Employers in California need to adjust their benefit plans, plan documents, and corporate and human resources policies to accommodate employees’ same-sex spouses. The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on June 28 lifted its stay on an injunction against enforcing Proposition 8, which had amended the California state constitution to define marriage as occurring between […]
DOL Extends Comment Period on Proposed Domestic Caregiver FLSA Exemption
Today the Labor Department extended the comment period for proposed changes to the Fair Labor Standards exemption for domestic caregivers. To date the agency has already received a flood of comments on the proposed regulation which would remove domestic caregivers from the Fair Labor Standards Act’s current exemption from minimum wage and overtime pay. Currently, the FLSA provides […]
Veterans: OFCCP Revises Job Listing Rules for Federal Contractors
The U.S. Department of Labor’s Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs (OFCCP) has released revised rules under the Vietnam Era Veterans’ Readjustment Assistance Act of 1974 (VEVRAA), implementing changes to the nondiscrimination and affirmative action requirements of federal contractors and subcontractors. The revisions were required by the 2002 Jobs for Veterans Act, which, among other […]
Would More Favorable Parental Leave Laws Help Boost Workforce Participation?
We hear a lot in the news these days about the historically low unemployment rate, but one figure we don’t hear about nearly as much is the labor force participation rate—the ratio between the size of the labor force and the size of the overall population for that age group, often grouped by cohort (i.e., […]
New Supervisors Don’t Know Their Own Power
New supervisors don‘t understand their new power, says attorney Jeffrey Wortman, and HR Managers had better teach them about it before they make an expensive mistake. Wortman’s comments were part of a wide-ranging discussion delivered to an enthusiastic audience at BLR’s Second Annual National Employment Law Update, held last week in Las Vegas, Nevada. (Next […]
Employee Benefits: New IRS Ruling Allows Carryover Of Certain Health Plan Funds
The Internal Revenue Service has issued a ruling that allows employees to carry over, tax free, money provided by their employers for out-of-pocket health costs. Here’s what you should know about the new rule.
News Notes: Employee’s Lack of Experience Defeats Equal Pay Claim
Paula Green, who was hired by the Ontario office of Par Pools as a swimming pool construction superintendent, complained that her $400-per-week salary was lower than the salaries paid to male construction superintendents with jobs identical to hers. She sued Par Pools under the California equal pay law. But a California Court of Appeal dismissed […]
Attorneys Warn of Most Common Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) Errors
To avoid FLSA trouble, be careful of misclassifying employees, making improper deductions, denying breaks, and allowing nonexempts to work “off the clock.” Dell Computers built its success on operating numerous call centers, where customers could phone in and buy their systems direct from the manufacturer. Now the way Dell runs those centers is under attack. […]