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Terminations

Moyock’s Blackwater USA under fire for Iraq shootings

11/01/2007

A congressional committee recently reported that Blackwater USA, the Moyock-based firm that provides security for U.S. diplomats in Iraq, fired 122 employees over the past three years for violations ranging from the misuse of weapons to alcohol and drug violations, inappropriate conduct and violent behavior …

What does ‘Right to work’ mean in North Carolina?

11/01/2007

Q. I always hear North Carolina is a “right to work” state. Does that mean there are limitations on how or why I may be fired? Does that have anything to do with “employment at will”? …

Time off beyond FMLA may be reasonable accommodation

11/01/2007

The FMLA gives eligible employees up to 12 weeks of unpaid leave per year. Employers are free to discharge employees who cannot return to work after that time is up—that’s legal under the FMLA. But before you fill out that pink slip, consider whether the employee may be disabled under the ADA. If so, he may be entitled to more time off as an accommodation …

Don’t let FMLA trip you up: Have HR investigate leave abuse

11/01/2007

You expect employees to follow your attendance and time-reporting rules and probably discipline those who don’t. But you need to know that FMLA leave can be an attendance minefield where disciplinary actions can cause great damage. Employees who allege that employers “willfully” interfered with their FMLA rights or retaliated against them for taking FMLA leave have up to three years to sue. One way to prevent the willful violation charge is to take the employee’s supervisor out of the disciplinary process …

Philadelphia law firm faces sex discrimination suit

11/01/2007

Patricia Biswanger, a former partner in the Philadelphia law firm Cozen O’Connor, has sued the firm, alleging she was not given the same privileges as male associates. Biswanger was fired from her position as a nonequity partner one month after she complained about discrimination …

Track rejected job offers to show lack of discrimination

11/01/2007

Employees who begin to feel less valued at work often look for some underlying reason. Often they focus on suspected age, sex, national origin or some other form of discrimination. Then, when a layoff or reorganization costs them their jobs, they sue. Frequently they’ll argue that they should have been offered open positions, even if it would have meant receiving a smaller salary than they had been making …

Do temporary employees count for WARN Act?

11/01/2007

Q. Our company may be closing a small facility in which 25 regular employees and 50 additional temporary employees work. Do we include the temporary employees when we decide whether we must give a WARN Act plant-closing notice? …

Unemployment following a strike

11/01/2007

Q. We are a small, nonunion parts supplier for a large, unionized manufacturing plant. Due to an ongoing strike by our primary customer’s union, demand for our product has decreased significantly, and we are having difficulty meeting payroll. Consequently, we are preparing to lay off several of our staff. Our CFO remembered reading that in Indiana, someone who loses his job due to a strike is not eligible for unemployment compensation. But, because the only reason we are laying our people off is due to the strike at our customer’s facility, can we contest unemployment for our laid-off staff? …

Satellite offices may not count for WARN layoff notice

11/01/2007

The Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification (WARN) Act requires employers to provide 60 days’ notice before a plant closing or a mass layoff involving 50 or more employees at a “single site of employment.” Employees have tried to argue that satellite offices should be included to determine if WARN notification was due …

IT administrator who planted ‘Logic bomb’ pleads guilty

11/01/2007

Yung-Hsun “Andy” Lin, a former systems administrator at Medco Health Solutions, pleaded guilty to planting a “logic bomb” on the company’s computer network because he suspected he was about to be laid off. The malicious software, a string of coding that would have wreaked havoc on the company’s systems, was set to detonate on Lin’s birthday …