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Employment Law

Admitted wrongdoing is grounds for discharge

07/10/2013
If you think an employee has broken a rule, ask her. If she admits she did, that’s reason enough to terminate her. Just make sure you ask the question of every suspected rule-breaker before disciplining them.

Don’t worry that an innocent mistake will doom your case

07/10/2013
Employers sometimes mess up for perfectly innocent reasons. Everybody makes mistakes, and courts are usually quite hesitant to punish those mistakes if there’s no evidence showing some nefarious intent to harm an employee.

Think twice before firing employee who needs to take short disability leave

07/10/2013
Too many employers assume they can simply discharge a worker who isn’t yet eligible for FMLA leave, doesn’t have any other leave available and can’t work for a short period of time. That’s simply not always true. If the employee qualifies as disabled under the ADA, he may be entitled to a short leave as a reasonable accommodation.

Warn bosses: Shut up about working women!

07/10/2013
The office is no place to discuss gender roles or women’s presence in the workplace. Be sure to warn supervisors against such talk, even in private.

Worker hinting at harassment? Provide policy

07/10/2013

You probably make sure all your employees have read your sexual harassment policy. That doesn’t mean they always follow it. If an employee is hinting that she’s being harassed, your best approach may be to hand her another copy and urge her to report any problems right away.

It’s now harder to sue for bias, retaliation

07/10/2013

Good news for employers: A pair of U.S. Supreme Court rulings handed down on June 24 will make it more difficult for your employees to file lawsuits against your organization, claiming discrimination or retaliation. Here’s the impact for HR:

Scrub protected-class info from résumés

07/09/2013
Here’s a simple way to keep many disappointed applicants from filing needless lawsuits: Make sure someone removes any application or résumé information that indicates race, national origin or other characteristics belonging to a protected class before the information is passed on to whoever makes the initial screening decision.

To pay or not to pay: Interns aren’t just a source of free labor

07/09/2013
It’s summertime, and college interns are filling corporate America’s cubicles. How many of those fresh-faced kids are wage-and-hour lawsuits just waiting to happen?

10 things you never want to have to admit in a retaliation case

07/09/2013

When an employee either complains internally about discrimination or goes to an outside agency like the EEOC to lodge a complaint, she has engaged in what’s called “protected activity.” She may not be right about the discrimination, but if her employer retaliated against her for complaining in the first place, she could win a large jury award anyway. You’ll want to avoid at all costs having to admit to any of these 10 things if you’re embroiled in a retaliation case.

Starbucks shift bosses tipped, assistant managers stiffed

07/09/2013
The New York Court of Appeal—the state’s highest court—has ruled that Starbucks baristas in New York must share tips with their shift supervisors. Assistant managers, however, are out of luck. The court said they don’t get a cut of the nickels, dimes and quarters left in the jars on the Starbucks counters.