Training
2011 Budget Means More Enforcement Against Employers
Wednesday, February 3rd, 2010I’ve been trying to get the word out to employers for the last several months that the executive branch of the federal government has employers who violate any of the federal employment laws in its sights (click here for an earlier blog post on enforcement efforts). Money for enforcement is pouring into federal agencies like [...]
Employee on Cell Phone in Car can be Costly for Employer
Monday, February 1st, 2010Debra Ford was driving on Interstate 16 in Georgia when her car was hit by a sedan driven by Vanessa McGrogan, an International Paper Company employee who was driving a company-owned car with the cruise control set at 77 mph in a 70 mph zone and according to a witness, talking on her company-issued cell [...]
Beware New ARRA Whistleblower Law
Monday, April 20th, 2009More than just Big Brother is watching you. Your employees are watching too, and can use the protections of a new whistleblower law to protect their jobs if they report any kind of wrongdoing by your business.
The new whistleblower law is included as a tiny piece of the massive American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (”ARRA”). [...]
Paying for Employee Training Time
Thursday, April 2nd, 2009Dow Chemical’s plant in Freeport, Texas recently had to pay a $861,647 settlement for back wages to 648 operating engineers who claimed they were not compensated for hours spent studying during mandatory training. The Department of Labor (”DOL”)investigated and found that the engineers should have been paid for the time spent in training required by [...]
Training Slashed Even As Employees File Lawsuits
Thursday, February 5th, 2009One of the ironies of recession is that businesses tend to cut back their training of their employees at the same time that layoffs are spawning the filing of higher numbers of employee lawsuits. This is happening again during the present deepening economic crisis. Unfortunately, this is one of those situations of businesses “cutting off [...]
Understanding Changes in Disability Discrimination Law
Thursday, January 15th, 20092009 is going to be remembered as the year that the Americans with Disabilities Act (”ADA”) became the full employment act for employees’ lawyers. That’s because dramatic changes to the ADA went into effect on January 1, 2009. No longer can an employer assume that the ADA is an concern only if an applicant shows [...]
What Every Supervisor Must Know
Thursday, October 9th, 2008Most employee lawsuits are caused by the actions of a first-line supervisor. In other words, that woman that you just promoted from cashier to assistant manager is the one most likely to get your company sued by a disgruntled employee or former employee. Why? Because the first-line supervisor has the most day-to-day contact with your [...]
Employees Required to Prevent ID Theft
Friday, August 29th, 2008A CVS pharmacy employee threw prescription forms in the dumpster behind the store in Houston. A Radio Shack worker in Corpus Christi dumped customer credit applications. EZPAWNS employees throughout Texas threw away customers’ bank statements. And the Levelland police found more than 4000 customer records in the garbage containers behind Select Physical Therapy. These were [...]
Training your Employees
Thursday, June 26th, 2008How about some sobering statistics for employers?
The average jury verdict for sexual harassment cases nationwide was found to be $1 million in a 2002 study titled “The Changing Nation of Employment Insurance”.
That same study found that the average jury verdict for wrongful termination cases (such as discrimination) is $1.8 million.
The average cost to settle any [...]