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Insurance

Deployed employees get full pay, benefits, monthly care packages

01/05/2009

The seven Shared Technologies employees who are serving in the military in Iraq or elsewhere get a monthly reminder that they’re still members of the team at the Texas company.

Consumer-driven health plans keep growing

01/05/2009

In their efforts to control health care costs, 45% of organizations have consumer-driven health (CDH) plans, up from 37% in 2007. Among them, 16% offer CDH programs to employees as their only option for a health plan …

May we recover insurance premiums paid while employee was on FMLA leave?

01/05/2009

Q. I have an employee who is taking leave under the FMLA. The company is continuing to pay the same portion of her health insurance premiums that we paid while she was working. If the worker fails to return to work when her protected leave expires, may the company recover the premium payments made during her leave period?

No interest penalty after resolving workers’ comp dispute

12/31/2008

Sometimes, it’s unclear whether an employee’s medical bills are related to a workplace injury. Now there’s a bit of good news if you wind up having to cover those bills.

Don’t panic when former employee files massive lawsuit—most claims go away

12/24/2008

These days, employees and their attorneys often go to great lengths to intimidate employers. One way to do that is to file a huge lawsuit—one that takes up pages and pages, and includes a laundry list of allegations … Before you panic, call your attorneys

What happens if we fail to provide COBRA notice upon termination?

12/24/2008

Q. What kinds of penalties or liability does an employer face if it fails to provide notice of COBRA coverage upon termination of an employee?

Winning unemployment case doesn’t let you off the hook for wrongful discharge

12/24/2008

Many employers carefully prepare for unemployment compensation hearings, especially if the employee was fired for misconduct. Then, having proven that the employee was fired for some wrongful act, they naively conclude that the same employee can’t turn around and sue them for wrongful discharge.

How can we protect ourselves? We’re worried aging employee will hurt himself

12/24/2008

Q. One of our employees is over age 70 and has recently had memory problems and a car wreck. What (if anything) can we do to protect ourselves from potential workers’ comp claims should he injure himself?

Do we have to pay health insurance opt-out bonus during FMLA leave?

12/18/2008

Q. Our company offers a health insurance opt-out incentive, paying employees $400 a month if they use their spouses’ insurance plans. We now have an employee going out on FMLA maternity leave. Do we have to keep paying her $400 per month?

Unfair labor charges

12/15/2008

Q. Our employee relations manager received a charge of an unfair labor practice (ULP) filed by the union with the National Labor Relations Board. In the ULP charge, the union alleges that when the secretary for our attorneys contacted a former employee—who had been discharged for misconduct—to schedule his deposition in his unemployment compensation proceeding, our company engaged in coercive interrogation in violation of the National Labor Relations Act and the Johnnie’s Poultry standard. There were no unfair labor practice proceedings pending before we received this ULP charge. What is Johnnie’s Poultry, and how is scheduling a deposition in a proceeding about a former employee’s unemployment compensation claim an unlawful labor practice?