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Compensation & Benefits

‘Gift of time’ benefits: Nice perk, but consider safety, too

02/01/2007

To thank employees for working 10-hour days during the busy tax season, RSM McGladrey gives them back some of their time: four hours of it, to be exact …

Employer takes pricey gamble playing with pension funds

02/01/2007

The owner of a Hollywood, Fla., insurance agency who siphoned money from the company’s pension fund has been found in contempt of court for failing to restore $107,938 to the plan …

Court rejects Continental worker’s claim of benefit miscalculation

02/01/2007

A federal judge in Texas recently dismissed a lawsuit brought by an employee who sued his former employer under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA), alleging that the company had breached its fiduciary duties …

Retail bosses needn’t be present to win executive exemption

02/01/2007

In an important opinion letter issued recently, the U.S. Labor Department said store managers can retain their executive-exemption status (i.e., ineligible for overtime pay) even if they don’t physically supervise employees under their control on a regular basis …

‘Balanced hours’ program helps recruit, retain lawyers

02/01/2007

Law firms often eschew scheduling flexibility because their income is based on billable hours. But the loss of a few hours isn’t as expensive as recruiting new lawyers. That’s why law firm Kirkpatrick & Lockhart Nicholson Graham introduced its Balanced Hours program, allowing its busy lawyers to telework and flex their schedules …

How to comply with Georgia’s child-labor laws

02/01/2007

Georgia has special child-labor laws that can trip you up if you’re not careful. With federal child-labor laws to consider as well, Georgia employers must navigate a tangled web of regulations when employing young workers …

Delegating Wage-Setting Discretion to Branches Won’t Justify a Class-Action Lawsuit

02/01/2007

Recently, clever lawyers toyed with a new tactic, hoping to turn individual discrimination cases into nationwide class-action monsters. They’d find a single unhappy employee and sue on behalf of all similarly situated employees in a company’s subsidiaries …

Watch for New Prevailing-Wage Rules for Building Services Workers

02/01/2007

The New Jersey Department of Labor & Workforce Development intends to enact new prevailing-wage rules for contractor employees or subcontractors who work on building services projects at properties owned or leased by the state …

You can pay lost wages, then fire reinstated employee

02/01/2007

In a unionized workplace, it can be tricky when an arbitrator—while interpreting a collective-bargaining agreement with the union—second-guesses the employer’s decisions …

Part-time, ‘as-needed’ employees can still sue for bias

02/01/2007

Employees can sue for discrimination if you illegally figure their race, sex, age, religion, disability or pregnancy status into their termination. That’s true even if an employee is a part-timer who works only a few hours on an as-needed basis …