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Employment Law

Charging falsification? Make sure you can back up claim

04/07/2008
Employees who don’t follow company rules should be disciplined and possibly terminated. But employers must make sure they can back up their claims. Otherwise, they may face lawsuits if the fired employees belong to a protected class …

Spotty promotion, training systems? Prepare for class action

04/07/2008
The rise of class actions makes it essential for HR professionals to explore exactly how their companies dole out training and promotion opportunities. If individual supervisors or managers have too much discretion, there may be trouble ahead. An “old boy” network may be alive and well …

Supersensitive employees? Don’t treat with kid gloves

04/07/2008
Don’t let fear of litigation allow one or two supersensitive employees to squash reasonable criticism and destroy workplace morale. Take, for example, an employee who happens to be a member of a protected class (e.g., race, gender or disability) and always seems to believe that supervisors are singling him out …

Quell the rumor mill while internal investigations progress

04/07/2008
Do you have safeguards to protect confidentiality while you conduct internal investigations of sexual harassment and other employee complaints? If not, you should. If an employer is careless and allows word of the allegations to get out to people who have no reason to know about them, the employer may face defamation claims …

Mandatory firing after year’s absence doesn’t violate ADA requirements

04/07/2008
Does your organization have a blanket policy that limits time off for any reason to no more than 12 consecutive months? If you apply that policy evenhandedly, you don’t have to worry that it violates the ADA’s requirement that you provide reasonable accommodations …

No light-Duty jobs open when employee returns? You don’t have to retain him

04/07/2008
Sometimes, injured employees use up all the leave their employer or the law allows before they’re ready to return to work. If the employee isn’t disabled as defined by the ADA, you can remove the employee from the payroll. (He may still be eligible for workers’ compensation payments.) …

Former Longview union official pleads guilty to embezzlement

04/07/2008
The former financial secretary and treasurer of Local 738 of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, located in Longview, has pleaded guilty to embezzling more than $40,000 over a three-year period …

Starbucks settles overtime suit

04/07/2008
Starbucks recently settled a lawsuit brought by assistant store managers who had accused the coffee company of denying them overtime wages in violation of the Fair Labor Standards Act. Judge Keith Ellison of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas approved the settlement …

Landscape changing for noncompete agreements in Texas

04/07/2008
A year and a half ago, the Texas Supreme Court clarified whether employers may require new and existing employees to sign noncompete agreements without changing their at- will status. The court concluded they can—as long as the employer provides proper consideration in return …

Wage-and-Hour, on-Call and mileage issues for ‘Exempt’ workers

04/07/2008
Q. I own a home-health agency. Although my licensed vocational nurses are paid by the visit, my registered nursing staff is considered management. They are salaried. Are we lawfully required to pay our RNs “on-call” pay or mileage? Although it’s not documented as such, we have taken these things into consideration when setting their salaries …