• The HR Specialist - Print Newsletter
  • HR Specialist: Employment Law
  • The HR Weekly

Compensation & Benefits

Requirements for maintaining payroll records

05/28/2008
Q. What payroll records must my company keep under North Carolina law?…

Are breaks required in North Carolina?

05/28/2008
Q. Must a North Carolina employer allow its employees certain rest or meal periods? …

USI defers decision on offering same-Sex partner benefits

05/27/2008
The University of Southern Indiana (USI) board of trustees opted not to vote on a resolution to grant employment benefits to same-sex domestic partners. The trustees decided to take more time to review the issue …

$500 buys a lot of cigarettes

05/27/2008
Nobody really likes being reformed, and that can make administering corporate wellness programs tricky, as Whirlpool recently found out. The company suspended 39 workers at its Evansville plant after discovering they lied about being nonsmokers to get a $500 discount on health insurance …

Concurrently running FMLA leave, vacation time and short-Term disability

05/27/2008
Q. Our policy requires an employee out on FMLA leave to run any accrued vacation or sick time concurrently with FMLA leave until that time is used up. (At that point, the FMLA leave becomes unpaid.) We also have a short-term disability (STD) policy that kicks in after seven consecutive days and lasts up to eight weeks. A pregnant employee recently requested 10 weeks of FMLA leave, starting upon the birth of her child. She currently has 3½ weeks of accrued vacation time. Can we require her to use up all of her vacation time once she goes out on maternity leave, even though she is also receiving STD payments? …

$4 million good deed caps Newark cabbie’s career

05/27/2008
When virtuoso violinist Philippe Quint realized he’d left his violin in the minivan that shuttled him to his home in Manhattan from Newark Airport in April, he collapsed. The violin was irreplaceable, a 1723 Stradivari “Ex-Kiesewetter” on loan from New York philanthropists and valued at $4 million …

Good news: Employees have just two years to file sales commission complaints

05/27/2008
It could have been the case that employer nightmares are made of—but the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals saved the day. Interpreting Indiana law, the federal court ruled that employees have just two years to sue over disputed sales commissions, not the 10 years a former employee argued for …

Tyson Foods beset by another overtime lawsuit

05/27/2008
Roughly 600 workers at the Tyson Foods meat processing facility in Logansport have filed suit seeking compensation for time they spent preparing for shifts and cleaning up afterward. The lawsuit is the latest in a string of “donning and doffing” overtime suits against Tyson and others in the meatpacking industry over what constitutes “compensable” activities …

Contractor or employee? FedEx enters Round 2

05/27/2008
Continuing a case that has spanned the country, lawyers for approximately 25,000 FedEx Ground/Home Delivery workers who are challenging their classification as independent contractors have filed for summary judgment in federal district court in South Bend …

You can require employees to sign agreements to arbitrate employment disputes

05/27/2008
A federal court concluded that New Jersey contract law does allow employers to require employees to arbitrate most employment-related complaints. Plus, if an arbitration agreement contains terms that a court finds invalid, the court may throw those provisions out and still enforce the rest of the agreement …