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Employment Law

What’s the Minnesota law on confidentiality agreements? Are they enforceable?

03/12/2009

Q. Our company works with proprietary and confidential information. We would like to protect ourselves from having that information get disclosed to competing companies. Are confidentiality agreements enforceable? If so, must they be signed at the start of a new employee’s job in order to be valid?

Is this legal? It looks like one of our employees will soon be a competitor

03/12/2009

Q. We are hearing rumors that one of our employees may be setting up a new business in the same industry in which we operate. That employee has not signed a noncompete agreement. If he is starting up such a business, is that illegal even without a noncompete?

Unions at your doorstep: The ABCs of EFCA … and how to respond

03/11/2009

Let the battle begin. On March 10, The Employee Free Choice Act, commonly referred to as the “card check” bill, was introduced in Congress. It’s the top legislative priority of labor unions. If passed, EFCA would streamline the process of union organizing, tilting it substantially in favor of workplace unionization. Union-free employers should consider acting now to keep their operations union-free. Here are the action steps to take today …

How to write the perfect rejection letter

03/10/2009

Mounting layoffs are creating a glut of qualified and aggressive job hunters who are desperate for work. As their frustration grows, more applicants are reading deeper into their rejection letters—sometimes spotting job promises or hints of discrimination that you never intended.

5 policy issues will shape HR—and nation’s economic recovery

03/10/2009

Major policy issues being debated in Washington will likely change the face of HR this year, according to speakers at the SHRM’s 2009 Employment Law and Legislative Conference. As a new Democratic Congress gains legislative traction and the Obama administration begins making policy, those issues could also be key to reversing the fiscal meltdown.

Stimulus law shakes up COBRA, other HR programs

03/09/2009

Amid the billions of dollars for roads and industry bailouts, the $789 billion American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 signed on Feb. 17 by President Obama includes a handful of important HR-related provisions. Comp and benefits pros must act immediately to comply with some of these provisions.

Make pre-firing investigation truly independent

03/09/2009

You might have rogue managers in your midst without even knowing it. If one of your supervisors has it in for a subordinate for discriminatory reasons, and you rely on his recommendation to terminate an employee, you may be in trouble.

You can rely on ‘negative’ FMLA certification

03/09/2009

Sometimes, employees think they’re sick enough to qualify for FMLA leave, but their doctors don’t. Other times, medical staff filling out the medical forms makes mistakes. Either way, if you get a certification or doctor’s note explaining that the employee can work, you are under no obligation to get more information. Instead, you can rely on that “negative” FMLA certification and deny leave.

Use solid research to back business-necessity defense when deciding not to accommodate

03/09/2009

Few employers win ADA cases by using a business-necessity defense. That’s probably because few employers take the time to really lay out why their business cannot accommodate a particular disability. Now the 11th Circuit has decided a business-necessity case that can serve as a blueprint for employers that want to use it effectively.

Proactively stamp out racist behavior to cut liability for hostile environment

03/09/2009

When employees claim they were forced to work in a racially hostile environment, the law says they can go back far into the past to show a pattern of harassment. Taken together, isolated acts that wouldn’t be severe enough to create a hostile environment may create liability. But an employer doesn’t have to be a hostage to its past.