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Are background checks required in Illinois?

04/09/2008
Q. I have heard that Illinois law requires background checks for employees. Is this true? …

Dairy protests ads allegedly aimed at Congressional candidate

04/09/2008
Joe Oberweis, president of Oberweis Dairy of North Aurora, has filed an injunction to stop the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee from airing ads accusing the company of employing illegal immigrants. Oberweis believes the ads are aimed at his father, Jim Oberweis, the Republican congressional candidate …

Background-Checking firms: How to Sort out the Best from the Rest

04/07/2008
Nearly 1,000 vendors are in the screening industry now, making it difficult to sort out the top tier from the fly-by-night firms. Good news: Starting this month, you’ll have a new yardstick on which to gauge their quality …

Applicant claims disability? Track how you handle hiring

04/01/2008
You probably have had people who claim they are disabled apply for open positions with your organization. How you handle each application can have a great impact: If you handle them incorrectly, you’re asking for a lawsuit. That’s why it’s crucial for HR to monitor what happens to each employment application …

How to legally verify workers’ ages

04/01/2008
Q. We run an amusement park. We have many jobs that can only be done by people of certain ages. For some jobs, employees must be at least 15, while others have minimum ages of 16, 18 and 21. What is the legal way for us to verify the age of an applicant on an employment application in Ohio? …

Clarify that promotions are based on business need

04/01/2008
Many companies have well-publicized promotion-from-within policies that encourage hard work, additional training and preparation to move up. If that’s the case at your organization, make sure you aren’t promising too much. Controlling employee expectations can lower the risk of litigation …

Seniority puts Delta, Northwest airline merger in holding pattern

04/01/2008
A potential merger of Delta and Northwest airlines is on hold while pilots try to work out a seniority agreement. The proposed merger is complicated by the fact that Atlanta-based Delta has a younger work force than Northwest, which is based in Eagan, Minn. …

Job outlook makes Forsyth County home of the American dream

04/01/2008
Forsyth County is one of the best places in the country to get ahead, according to a recent list released by Forbes.com. The business magazine web site examined U.S. Census and Labor Department statistics from 2000 forward for every county in the nation …

Degree of control changes status from contractor to employee

04/01/2008
More and more courts are ignoring the labels companies and independent contractors put on their relationships—and even rewriting the relationship in some cases. That means that someone an organization has carried on the books as an independent contractor can be reclassified as an employee …

Passed over a qualified employee? You can fix the problem

04/01/2008
Sometimes, employers make promotion mistakes that are purely unintentional. That can happen, for example, if an employer somehow overlooked a qualified employee for a promotion. If that employee is a member of a protected class, however, it’s easy to believe that the reason was illegal discrimination …