Most of you have probably received pre-litigation letters from attorneys claiming to represent a former employee who believes that you have done them wrong. The letters traditionally demand that you pay up or get sued. Quite often these letters end up in the circular, metal container near your desk. Sometimes the former employees actually sue, most of the time they go away. Unfortunately, some enterprising plaintiff’s attorneys in Texas are using the tendency of most employers to ignore these letters as a way to void otherwise enforceable arbitration agreements. Continue reading “Don’t Ignore Pre-Litigation Demands That Mention Arbitration”
Month: May 2019
Employers Should Prepare to Submit Their Component 2 Pay Data By September 30, 2019
On April 25, 2019, a U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia ruled that employers who are required to file EEO-1 reports must submit Component 2 pay data for calendar years 2017 and 2018 by September 30, 2019. (This generally applies to EEO-1 filers with 100 or more employees; both in the private industry and federal contractors and subcontractors.) You may recall that the OMB initially approved pay data collection, and then stayed its permission, in 2017. Advocacy groups filed suit in the D.C. Circuit court to vacate the OMB’s self-imposed stay, which the Court granted in April. Continue reading “Employers Should Prepare to Submit Their Component 2 Pay Data By September 30, 2019”
Dallas Follows Austin and San Antonio and Implements a Paid Sick Leave Ordinance
For those of you with employees in Dallas, Texas, this bit of news is for you. Last month Dallas passed an ordinance requiring private employers with employees who perform at least 80 hours of work in a year in Dallas to provide paid sick leave to their workers. The new ordinance goes into effect August 1, 2019, for employers with more than five employees. The ordinance will impact employers of five or fewer employees on August 1, 2021. Dallas joins Austin and San Antonio in implementing paid sick leave ordinances in Texas. Continue reading “Dallas Follows Austin and San Antonio and Implements a Paid Sick Leave Ordinance”
U.S. House of Representatives Urges OSHA to Create a Standard Regarding Workplace Violence in the Healthcare Industry
You may recall from our prior updates that the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) has been concerned with the prevalence of injuries suffered by healthcare and social service employees due to work-related violence for some time. Lacking a specific standard applicable to this risk, OSHA has usually relied on the General Duty Clause to address this issue. However, in 2015 OSHA issued an updated voluntary guideline for violence prevention in healthcare and social services (https://www.shrm.org/ResourcesAndTools/hr-topics/risk-management/Documents/osha3148.pdf) and in 2016 OSHA proposed a specific Standard covering violence in the healthcare and social service sectors. Unfortunately, the proposed Standard has languished and there has been little progress in moving it towards completion in the past three years. Continue reading “U.S. House of Representatives Urges OSHA to Create a Standard Regarding Workplace Violence in the Healthcare Industry”
Be Careful If You Want to Use Unpaid Interns this Summer
Summer is upon us. The time of year that many of us are pressured to take on an employee’s son, daughter, niece or nephew “just for the experience” of working in the real world. What could go wrong? The kid gets some experience and you get some free labor. A win-win, right? You might want to slow down.
Many businesses run afoul of federal law by failing to pay minimum wage and overtime pay to unpaid interns whom the law considers to actually be employees. Federal courts have historically used the “primary beneficiary test” to determine whether an unpaid Summer worker was an employee under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA). Under this test, courts examine the economic realities of the worker-employer relationship to determine which party is the primary beneficiary of the relationship. If the unpaid worker is not the primary beneficiary, they should probably be classified as an employee. Continue reading “Be Careful If You Want to Use Unpaid Interns this Summer”
Apparently I Need to Say This: Do Not Say “Whites Preferred” When Posting a Job Online
Yes, I know. You are probably thinking that I have lost my mind. Who would be dense, foolish, racist (insert your favorite substitute for “dumb _ _ _” here) enough to do such a thing? Apparently, a now-former employee of Cynet Systems was.
If you have not already heard, last weekend the net learned that Cynet posted a job online seeking candidates “Preferably Caucasian.” Continue reading “Apparently I Need to Say This: Do Not Say “Whites Preferred” When Posting a Job Online”
bswlaborandemploymentlaw.com 