Archive for the ‘Federal Labor Law’ Category

Female employees of Wal-Mart outlets in California have joined in a class-action lawsuit against the firm in an effort to elude the restrictions placed on such efforts by the Supreme Court in its Dukes v. Wal-Mart decision. In that case, the court ruled that a nationwide suit was too broad to meet class-action standards. Attorneys for [...]

With its recent announcement that it had entered into a National Mediation Agreement with Cracker Barrel Old Country Store Inc., the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) is now helping more than 200 firms nationwide resolve disputes with their employees without going to court. The EEOC is charged with enforcing the harassment and discrimination statutes of [...]

On the heels of its time-keeping smartphone app for tracking hours worked, the Department of Labor (DOL) is now introducing a smartphone app to measure the heat index at a work site. It is available now for Android operating systems, with apps promised soon for the iPhone and Blackberry. The app allows workers and supervisors [...]

In the first week of its 2011-2012 session, the United States Supreme Court heard a case involving a church and its actions in terminating an employee who took disability leave and was asked to resign as a result. When she refused to resign and threatened to sue, she was terminated. The teacher, Cheryl Perich, took [...]

The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) has postponed the implementation date for its new employee rights notice-posting rule by more than two months in order to allow for enhanced education and outreach to employers, particularly those who operate small- and medium-sized businesses.  The new date is Jan. 31, 2012. The decision to extend the rollout [...]

A recent court case sets a precedent that an employer who fails to return phone calls from employees on FMLA leave may be liable for FMLA retaliation claims. The Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) allows qualifying employees to take up to 12 weeks of unpaid leave to deal with their own health issues or [...]

The Department of Labor (DOL) is launching a program whereby states and the federal government will share information on the misclassification of employees as independent contractors, and the DOL in turn will rat to the Internal Revenue Service (IRS). The goal is to increase penalties for misclassifying employees and thereby restrict or eliminate the practice. [...]

As part of President Obama's American Jobs Act, the Fair Employment Opportunity Act would add unemployed individuals who are actively seeking work as a protected class under the Civil Rights Act of 1964, giving the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) the power to investigate discrimination complaints and levy fines, penalties and injunctive relief (as well [...]

The National Association of Manufacturers (NAM) has sued the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) to rescind its required employee rights poster, which the association says the board lacks the authority to mandate. The NLRB on August 30 published a final rule mandating that virtually every business in America display an NLRB-worded poster to inform employees [...]

Overriding the Democratic governor's veto, Republicans in the state legislature have abolished the state's minimum wage, which was $7.25 an hour, the same as the federal rate. With no state wage law, New Hampshire is now subject to the federal minimum. The House Republicans at the same time defeated a 75-cent increase in the (now-defunct) [...]