The historic November 8th victory of Donald Trump has the potential to impact Federal law. Now that the Republican Party controls the Senate and Presidency the dynamics of the Supreme Court will change. After the Presidential inauguration on January 20, 2017 Donald Trump will nominate someone to fill the current vacancy on the Supreme Court. [...]
The Oklahoma state Supreme Court ruled on September 13, 2016, in Vasquez v. Dillard’s that the Opt Out Act created impermissible unequal, disparate treatment of a select group of injured workers and is an unconstitutional special law under the Oklahoma Constitution. The Employee Injury Benefit Act (Opt Out Act) allowed qualified employers to avoid participating [...]
Remote non-exempt employees present numerous risk management challenges, and this article addresses two of the most common. First, let's review what "non-exempt" means. A non-exempt employee is one to whom the minimum wage and overtime provisions of the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) apply. The employee is not exempt from those provisions. Consequently, a natural [...]
The Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) requires covered employers to provide up to twelve weeks of unpaid leave to qualified employees who have a serious health condition. As you might imagine, if the condition is sufficiently serious, twelve weeks may not be enough time to recover and return to work. At the end of [...]
She had repeated unexpected absences. She made routine use of intermittent FMLA. The employee's supervisor is on the phone and wants to fire her. You, the HR professional on the front line, must ensure that enforcing company expectations does not violate employee legal rights. In the case described in this article, the employer was careful [...]
American Novelist Richard Heller's Catch-22 is required reading in many high school literature classes. Set in World War II, the characters struggled with their conflicting goals. Naturally, they wanted to perform their military duty. However, they also wanted to return home safely. As history has confirmed, flying heavy bombers during World War II was not [...]
When is a Doctor Visit a "Treatment" for FMLA Purposes? Ordinarily, where an employer is covered by FMLA and a qualified employee has a serious health condition, that employee may take FMLA leave to receive treatment for the condition. That makes sense because, generally, a person who is undergoing a medical procedure is unable to [...]
Advanced Topics in HR Management: The National Labor Relations Board In the Non-Unionized Workplace Every so often, we focus a newsletter on the technical legal aspects of an issue as part of our Advanced Topics in HR Management series. If you have been keeping up with employment law over the last few years, you know [...]
Temporary Disabilities and the ADA After the Americans With Disabilities Act (ADA) was passed, the single most litigated issue was whether a particular condition was a disability. One point was resolved early: the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) clarified through regulations that a temporary impairment was not a disability within the meaning of the Act. [...]
A Few Employee Handbook Essentials Writing a complete employee handbook is far beyond the purposes of this newsletter. Instead, February's installment is designed to address some of the most common issues that occur with do-it-yourself employee manuals. Do You Need an Employee Handbook? Employee handbooks are complicated to create and moderately expensive to buy if [...]
