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The Employer Handbook BlogReasonable accommodations for disabled employees need to be reasonable, not perfect
I won’t bury the lede, which I’ll quote from the Fourth Circuit decision I read last night. Continue reading
Here are forty thousand reasons why “equal pay for equal work” applies to male victims too
A federal law called the Equal Pay Act requires that men and women in the same workplace receive equal pay for equal work. The jobs need not be identical, but they must be substantially equal.
While women often seek relief under this statute, a state government agency learned the hard way that “equal pay for equal work” applies to underpaid men, too. Continue reading
An employer’s response to a complaint of harassment doesn’t need to be perfect. Just ok may do.
Remember that AT&T ad campaign a few years ago where the mobile network provider touted how cell phone users should not have to settle for mediocre phone service?
In the workplace, however, “just ok” may be good enough when responding to employee complaints of harassment.
Hey, I’m not saying employers should aspire for “just ok,” but it can defeat a sexual harassment lawsuit.
Did this guy’s performance really nose-dive? Or did his age motivate his abrupt termination?
Stop me if you’ve heard this one before. Continue reading
Employee claims bias when employer failed to hire an inferior candidate.
“Uh, Eric, don’t you mean the superior candidate?” Continue reading
Folks, we have our first lawsuit to try to KO the DOL’s new independent contractor rule
It took less than a week for a group of freelance writers and editors to file this federal court lawsuit to block enforcement of the U.S. Department of Labor’s new independent contractor rules, which I wrote about here last week.
If you thought the DOL’s final rule would sail through without a fight, think again. Continue reading
Let’s revisit how to handle FMLA and FLSA for a snow day office closure.
Back in the day, the mere promise of Cheerios and chocolate milk was all it took to dupe my two oldest kids (then three and five) to shovel the driveway for a few hours. Come to think of it, I preferred the stick to the carrot. So I probably threatened to cancel Nickelodeon and, with that, all vestiges of Yo Gabba Gabba. Either way, the children were too young and naive to ask for minimum wage or form a union. So, they shoveled snow.
Fortunately, the littlest one — salting the walkway out of frame — lacked the manual dexterity to call the NJ Department of Labor on me.
Ah, the good ‘ol days. Continue reading
Join me on Wednesday, January 17, at 1 PM for a webinar on the new DOL Independent Contractor Rules
Last week, the U.S. Department of Labor finalized its rules on how to analyze and determine who is an employee or independent contractor under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), which I wrote about here.
This week, I’m co-presenting “Independent Contractor Update – How Am I to Determine if I Am Compliant?”
And all of you are invited. Continue reading
Today’s free “wage and hour 101” post is the silver lining to an employer’s $1.6M screw-up
The Fair Labor Standards Act can be a veritable legal liability minefield for the uninitiated. Just ask several of my friends who practice law on the plaintiff’s side. Heck, it can put an employment lawyer’s kids through college, no matter on which side of the “v” they practice. 😏
Last night, I read a news release from the U.S. Department of Labor that helps put this into perspective.