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

Employment Law

Renhill Staffing pays for discrimination that ‘Didn’t happen’

05/02/2008
Perrysburg-based Renhill Staffing Services has agreed to pay more than $580,000 to settle an EEOC lawsuit alleging age and race discrimination. The lawsuit accused the recruitment and temporary services firm of failing to refer blacks and people over age 40 for job openings …

Get ahead of the curve by offering anti-Gay bias training

05/02/2008
Ohio may soon join other states in outlawing sexual orientation discrimination by private employers. It may be time for employers to rethink their employment discrimination policies and include sexual orientation. One good first step is to include anti-gay discrimination training in your regular anti-discrimination program …

FMLA protection can be triggered by ‘Potential’ of serious illness

05/02/2008
But does the FMLA cover leave taken by an employee who thinks he has a serious condition and needs some tests to check it out? Yes, it does. That’s why employers should never discipline or fire employees while they’re in this “limbo” medical stage …

Notify employees every time you plan to charge time off to FMLA

05/02/2008
When employees take leave to deal with serious health conditions, inform them that you plan to charge that time against their allotment of unpaid FMLA leave. If you fail to do so, it will be relatively easy for her to sue and show she was harmed by the lack of notice …

Service members’ jobs protected—If actually employed

05/01/2008
The Uniformed Services Employment and Reemployment Rights Act (USERRA) protects members of the armed forces by allowing them to return to their jobs when their service ends. But USERRA has limits, applying only to service members who actually were employees when they went to serve …

Good news: Court nixes class action for unrelated claims

05/01/2008
Good news on the class action front. A federal court has refused to allow a lawsuit to go forward as a class action when it was clear that none of the employees named in the complaint had anything in common except that they worked for the same company …

You can require absent employees to follow call-In process

05/01/2008
To manage the workload, employers have to know who will be at work and who will not. After all, when an employee isn’t at work, someone else has to step in and get the work done. Of course, employees sometimes do get sick or have emergencies. A well-crafted call-in policy can help employers cope with unexpected absences …

Despite complaint, unreasonable demands may merit firing

05/01/2008
An employer often bends over backward when an employee says she’s been harassed. It feels compelled to treat the complaining employee with kid gloves to avoid possible retaliation charges. That may be a mistake, especially if the employee becomes disruptive and generally uncooperative …`

Managing the consequences of an affair badly ended

05/01/2008
Ordinarily, a consensual affair carried on outside the workplace, even between a supervisor and a subordinate, won’t mean liability for the employer if the supervisor never threatened or punished the subordinate at work. But once the affair is over, and management finds out about the relationship, it’s critical to make sure the subordinate isn’t unfairly punished …

When discrimination charges are possible, investigate thoroughly before firing

05/01/2008
When you fire an employee, you want the decision to stick. You certainly don’t want to use a flimsy reason for discharge and then find out later that other employees regularly ignore your rule. If the former employee is a member of a protected class, that’s a sure recipe for a discrimination lawsuit …