The Employer Handbook Blog

NLRB: Maybe, after all, it’s not ok for employees to call their bosses nasty motherf***ers

September 6, 2019 | by Eric B. Meyer

Yesterday, the National Labor Relations Board announced here that it wants your input — actually your lawyers will have to submit a brief — “on whether the Board should reconsider its standards for profane outbursts and offensive statements of a racial or sexual nature.” Continue reading

PODCAST: How to create a sexual harassment policy

September 5, 2019 | by Eric B. Meyer

Wolfmann [CC BY-SA 4.0], via Wikimedia Commons

We’re two-thirds of the way through 2019, and companies continue to allocate significant portions of their legal budgets to addressing #MeToo and issues relating to sexual harassment in the workplace.

This isn’t going away any time soon.

How many of you would risk the retaliation claim here? (I would)

September 4, 2019 | by Eric B. Meyer

Image by Clker-Free-Vector-Images from Pixabay

You’ve been here before.

One of your employees just complained about discrimination in the workplace. Or maybe s/he just participated in an HR investigation. A few days or weeks later, s/he violates your work rules and you have clear grounds to fire the employee.

Now you have a conundrum. Do you fire the employee and risk the retaliation claim? Or do you give the employee a pass?
Continue reading

Do you use the FLSA’s fluctuating workweek method? Do you pay bonuses too? You’ll want to read this.

September 3, 2019 | by Eric B. Meyer

By U.S. Department of Labor – Converted from EPS version available here; there are EPS and PDF versions, Public Domain, Link

Welcome to both of you. Continue reading

Could misclassifying an employee as an independent contractor violate the FLSA and federal labor law too?!?

August 30, 2019 | by Eric B. Meyer

By National Labor Relations Board – http://www.nlrb.gov/shared_files/Press%20Announcements/2010/A-08.pdf, Public Domain, Link

Just because you say that an employee is an independent contractor doesn’t make it so. Many companies have found that out the hard way when the U.S. Department of Labor comes knocking for a wage and hour audit.

But, could this misclassification also be an unfair labor practice under the National Labor Relations Act? Continue reading

READ THIS: “Marijuana and the Workplace: It’s Complicated”

August 29, 2019 | by Eric B. Meyer

Image by CMElixirs from Pixabay

If you’ve got workplace drug testing for marijuana all figured out, you can skip today’s post.

As for the rest of you… Continue reading

Ok, let’s see how you guys did on yesterday’s social media policy quiz

August 28, 2019 | by Eric B. Meyer

Yesterday, in this blog post, I asked you to take this quiz. That’s the one where you were shown 11 common social media policies and had to decide which ones the National Labor Relations Board’s Office of General Counsel would conclude were lawful.

So, how did you do? You did aight. Continue reading