You’ll find an important update if you head over to the official Layoffs and Closings website for New Jersey’s Department of Labor & Workforce Development. There are changes to the Millville Dallas Airmotive Plan Job Loss Notification Act, also known as New Jersey’s Mini WARN Act). They took effect on April 10,…
The Family and Medical Leave Act guarantees eligible employees up to 12 workweeks of leave in a 12-month period for a qualifying reason, such as taking care of a parent with a serious health condition. Employers, on the other hand, cannot interfere with employees’ FMLA rights. But, are there circumstances…
The EEOC has guided employers to accommodate employee use of certain prescribed medications, and excuse failed drug tests that reflect the presence of those drugs — if it is done safely — because those individuals who test positive likely have an underlying disability. But, when employee self-medicate — like with…
They were so bad that a federal judge applied a rarely-used rule of civil procedure to consider summary judgment on its own after identifying for the parties material facts that may not be genuinely in dispute. Boy, that was about as witty as Groundskeeper Willie’s standup routine at Springfield Elementary. (Note…
I get that employee handbooks are not contacts and are subject to change and all that stuff. But, companies should be prepared to enforce any existing policy in an employee handbook as written. A multi-billion-dollar company with an overly broad attendance policy learned this lesson the hard way recently. According…
Proving age discrimination can be difficult because plaintiffs must ultimately establish that their age was a determinative factor in the defendant’s decision. In other words, if not for the plaintiff’s age, the [adverse employment action] would not have occurred. In failure-to-hire cases, the burden of proof is especially difficult since…
Federal law requires most companies to pay minimum wage and overtime pay for employees unless they qualify for an exemption. Employees generally must meet certain tests regarding their job duties and get a salary of at least $684 per week, which works out to just $35,568 per year. But a new overtime…
As more businesses transition from allowing remote work to mandating a return to the office, apart from the general employee backlash, one of the biggest HR compliance issues companies face is how to address the spike in medical-related requests to continue to work from home. As part of its earlier…
I’ve seen weaker lawsuits. But let me explain why the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals recently affirmed that asking a female colleague to babysit, once hitting her posterior with a rubber band, and even failing to use her proper title is not enough to create a hostile work environment based…
Over the weekend, several news outlets ran this story about a white television news anchor in Mississippi who went viral for using one of rapper Snoop Dogg’s catchphrases, “Fo shizzle, my nizzle,” during a live broadcast. This unexpected comment appeared to stun the station’s meteorologist, who is black. Just look…