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Employment Law

Executive order will ban LGBT bias for federal contractors

06/24/2014
President Obama plans to sign an executive order prohibiting federal contractors from discriminating against lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender employees and job applicants, according to White House officials.

NLRB: Ban on ‘inappropriate’ conduct is illegal

06/23/2014

You read that right. Soon you will recall the good ol’ days when employee handbooks could prohibit employees from having a “discourteous or inappropriate attitude or behavior.” The NLRB in April ruled that such language was too broad and could possibly deter employees from discussing their pay or working conditions with colleagues.

Administration to extend FMLA rights to all same-sex spouses

06/20/2014
The Labor Department’s proposed rule would affect employees nationwide.

Federal contractors: New rule will ban anti-gay bias

06/20/2014
The White House announced June 16 that President Obama will soon issue an executive order that bans federal contractors from discriminating in hiring, firing, compensation or work conditions based on a person’s sexual orientation or gender identity.

Demand the medical info you need to set up ADA accommodations

06/18/2014

Disabled employees are entitled to reasonable accommodations, which must be decided on the basis of an interactive discussion between the employer and employee. Some employees, perhaps sensitive about their medical histories, try to limit the information their employers can see. That can compromise the interactive process.

How to maintain independent contractor status: Don’t exert too much control

06/17/2014
You may be tempted to reclassify certain workers as independent contractors to avoid taxes, benefits and other liabilities. But federal and state agencies are getting tougher on weeding out misclassifications.

Employee’s out of FMLA: What options are left?

06/16/2014
Q. An employee has been out on leave and has now run out of FMLA leave. It’s unclear when she will return. Can we terminate her employment?

Is it possible to apply FMLA retroactively?

06/16/2014
Q. We have 75 employees at our one facility. An employee recently took two months off for a serious operation. We did not classify this as FMLA leave, but now we think we should have. What can we do?

Should we be paying for the trip from our home office to the work site?

06/16/2014
Q. One of our work crews needs to drive to a single work site during the day. One employee drives a truck and trailer with tools and equipment from our main facility. We would like to allow other employees to save gas by riding in the company’s truck. Do we need to pay employees for this commute time?

EEOC issues new employer guidance on religious dress and grooming

06/16/2014
As the workforce becomes more diverse, religious accommodation requests are becoming more common. In addressing such requests, employers should be mindful of the new in­­for­­mal guidance recently issued by the EEOC regarding religious accommodations involving dress or grooming.