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Employment Law

Pa. Supreme Court: Employers free to go it alone on UC appeals

06/01/2007

Thanks to a recent Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruling, employers may now attend unemployment compensation appeals hearings without an attorney. The court overturned a 2005 Commonwealth Court ruling …

Pa. working women earn petite paychecks

06/01/2007

Women in Pennsylvania earn 73 cents for every dollar earned by men in similar positions, compared to the national average of 77 cents on the dollar …

Governor pushing prescription for Pennsylvania

06/01/2007

Gov. Ed Rendell has been traveling the state selling his plan to make health care available and affordable for all Pennsylvanians. The plan—introduced in the House of Representatives as House Bill 700—proposes a program called Cover All Pennsylvanians (CAP)

Protect against your company’s biggest security threat: your employees

06/01/2007

A lost laptop containing the Social Security numbers of more than 50,000 people … A misplaced disk that contains account information for an entire state … Your company’s greatest security threat probably comes not from outside sources but from your own employees. To protect against such internal threats and loss of information, you need to take specific measures to reduce potential risks …

Pregnancy and ADA

06/01/2007

Q. An employee we hired two months ago has been absent frequently. She just informed us that: She is three months pregnant; is often too sick to work due to her pregnancy; has been told by her doctor that she can work only part-time for the next several months; and might be on bed rest for the last two months of her pregnancy. It is necessary for her to perform her job on a full-time basis without excessive absences. Is pregnancy covered under the ADA? Can we terminate her to hire someone who will be there full-time?

Same job, new management: Are employees covered by the FMLA?

06/01/2007

Q. What is the policy on FMLA for workers who are employed by a county facility that puts their contracts out for bids? Let’s say the workers are employed by the first successful bidder for, say, three years and then the contract is re-bid. Another company wins the bid, takes over the job and keeps the same employees. Do their hours worked carry over even though it is a different employer? I could not find a reference to this problem in the FMLA guidelines.

Pay for training time

06/01/2007

Q. If our organization offers voluntary training to our employees and the training takes place during their lunch hour, do we have to pay the employees for the time spent attending the training? 

Background checks

06/01/2007

Q. When may an employer conduct background checks on employees and potential employees?

Track customer complaints—you may need them later

06/01/2007

If subjective criteria like attitude, leadership and being a team player are part of your organization’s employee evaluations, you’d be wise to keep detailed records of customer complaints …

Make sure agreement doesn’t include no-Lawsuit clause

06/01/2007

Using independent contractors can save money on benefits, overtime, workers’ compensation and a whole host of other costs associated with having employees. But watch out if your agreements with independent contractors include a clause prohibiting them from taking “a position contrary” to their status as independent contractors