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News Notes: Ninth Circuit Rejects Overtime And Mail Fraud Claim

Yokohama Tire Corp. employee Christopher Miller sued under RICO (Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations), the federal organized crime statute, charging Yokohama conducted a fraudulent scheme to deny employees overtime. Miller claimed high-ranking Yokohama employees falsely told him and other workers they weren’t entitled to overtime pay because they were salaried, and that every time Yokohama […]

Time To Terminate? Not Just Yet…

Managers always “want to get it over with” once they’ve decided they want to fire someone. That’s no surprise, but HR can’t let it happen. Step back and assess the whole picture before acting.

Our Readers Talk Back: ‘No Jerks’ Proposal Brings Out ‘C.A.V.E. People’ and ‘Loyal Oppositionists’

By BLR Founder and CEO Bob Brady Bob Brady’s recent column on whether to have a “No jerks!” rule banning antagonistic empoyees brought intriguing responses. One reader expects “a little jerkiness” in everyone, and another invokes the “C.A.V.E.” rule. Here’s a sampling: “C.A.V.E. People and Loyal Oppositionists” “We’ve coined the phrase ‘C.A.V.E. people’ [standing for] […]

Decisionmaking in Employer Pension Plans

By Lyne Duhaime and Ross Gascho If your company is both the sponsor and administrator of a pension plan in a Canadian province other than Quebec, you should take note of the recent Ontario Court of Appeal decision in Re Indalex. Although the case deals with competing claims in insolvency and deficits in wound up […]

E-Alert Item: Sexual Harassment: San Francisco Pays $450,000 to Settle Janitor’s Harassment Claim

A former San Francisco Municipal Railway custodian sued her employer, claiming that two male co-workers made lewd gestures and sexually explicit comments to her. Lisa Mixon, who started working for the transit agency in 1996, also said that one of the offenders offered her money in exchange for sex. She further charged that she was […]

Avoid Common Electronic Recordkeeping Missteps

In yesterday’s CED, we covered issues surrounding electronic recordkeeping. Today, more principles — plus a valuable recordkeeping desk reference, specifically for California employers. Electronic recordkeeping is wonderful in many ways but the pitfalls are varied and deep, as we saw in yesterday’s issue. To skirt those danger zones, here are more of the principles of […]

That Elusive Seat at the Executive Table: Here’s How to Get It

It’s National Boss’s Day. Have you sent your boss a card? Perhaps it should carry this message from Jack Welch … that HR needs to be a more prominent part of your organization. If you think that HR should be as important a function at your company as finance, marketing, or production, and that HR […]

EEOC offers website and guidance for young workers

The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission’s (EEOC) Youth@Work program is designed to educate working-age young people about their rights and responsibilities in the workplace and how they can protect themselves against illegal discrimination and harassment in the workplace. The program consists of three main components:  the Youth@Work web site, free outreach events, and partnerships with business leaders, […]

Insurance Commissioner Urges Insurers to Do More to Cut Comp Rates

California Insurance Commissioner John Garamendi has announced that workers’ compensation insurers in the state have filed rate reductions averaging 14.6 percent for policies incepting on or after July 1, 2005. These latest cuts bring the cumulative rate reduction to 26.78 percent since the massive workers’ compensation reforms of 2003 and 2004.