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The Employer Handbook Blog

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Did this guy’s performance really nose-dive? Or did his age motivate his abrupt termination?

Stop me if you’ve heard this one before. One of your employees has been with the company for several years. Over that span, they reported to the same manager, who consistently provided positive feedback and good performance reviews. All is well. Then, the manager leaves. And there’s a new sheriff…

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Employee claims bias when employer failed to hire an inferior candidate.

“Uh, Eric, don’t you mean the superior candidate?” You’d think I would, but I’m reading what the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals wrote in this recent opinion. The plaintiff, a black woman, applied for a job. The company conducted two rounds of interviews, with separate panels in each round, to…

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Folks, we have our first lawsuit to try to KO the DOL’s new independent contractor rule

It took less than a week for a group of freelance writers and editors to file this federal court lawsuit to block enforcement of the U.S. Department of Labor’s new independent contractor rules, which I wrote about here last week. If you thought the DOL’s final rule would sail through without…

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Join me on Wednesday, January 17, at 1 PM for a webinar on the new DOL Independent Contractor Rules

Last week, the U.S. Department of Labor finalized its rules on how to analyze and determine who is an employee or independent contractor under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), which I wrote about here. This week, I’m co-presenting “Independent Contractor Update – How Am I to Determine if I Am Compliant?”…

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Today’s free “wage and hour 101” post is the silver lining to an employer’s $1.6M screw-up

The Fair Labor Standards Act can be a veritable legal liability minefield for the uninitiated. Just ask several of my friends who practice law on the plaintiff’s side. Heck, it can put an employment lawyer’s kids through college, no matter on which side of the “v” they practice. 😏 Last…

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A company supposedly awarded a black employee a trophy for “Least Likely to Be Seen in the Dark.” WTH?!?

Some people in Dallas do some dumb stuff. For example, every year, many locals hold out hope into late December or early January that the Cowboys will win the Super Bowl. After their hopes get dashed when the team inevitably chokes, the fans irrationally board the bandwagon the following Summer.…

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Here are five things for employers to know about the DOL’s new independent contractor rule

Yesterday, the U.S. Department of Labor finalized its rules on how to analyze and determine who is an employee or independent contractor under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA). In a nutshell, the final rule applies six factors — none of which is dispositive — to analyze employee or independent…

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The EEOC’s new General Counsel is targeting Antisemitism, Islamophobia. So should you.

Yesterday, the U.S. Equal Employment Commission’s newest General Counsel, Karla Gilbride, told reporters that addressing discrimination in American workplaces relating to the Israel-Hamas skirmish is a top priority for 2024. On October 7, 2023, the terrorist organization Hamas staged the deadliest terrorist attack against Israel since the state’s establishment in…

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A company must rehire a moonlighting comic it fired for his ‘inflammatory’ standup routine.

About a year ago, a media organization fired one of its reporters after it found his ‘inflammatory’ Instagram posts (NSFW) showing clips of his off-the-clock standup comedy routines. Last week, an arbitrator, who found some of the reporter’s jokes ‘funny,’ ordered the company to rehire him. Why? I’ll explain by…