News

Nothing says Happy New Year better than a raft of opinion letters from the Department of Labor. The letters cover the Fair Labor Standards Act and the Family and Medical Leave Act.

I am an HR manager at a big nursery with hundreds of greenhouses, and we provide our employees with portable toilets. It was brought to my attention by the cleaner that he found a cut-up soda can and a syringe in one of the potties. I have never encountered any drug use at our nursery, and I am not sure how I can handle this situation.

When deciding whether discipline was biased, courts often seek to compare workers who have the same supervisor, not just those who have the same job. That’s because discrimination is often manifested by individual acts, not a systemic, organization-wide problem. That makes it important to track discipline by supervisor.

Some managers continue to hold outdated views on pregnancy and the capacity for a woman to work while awaiting the birth of her child. Being vocal about these views—and especially acting on them—is almost certain to provoke a lawsuit.

While no federal law specifies that employers must provide each employee with an up-to-date job description, it’s a serious mistake not to do so. Skipping this crucial step almost guarantees you will have at least one employee who is misclassified as exempt under the Fair Labor Standards Act when they should be paid on an hourly basis.

In an unprecedented move, EEOC chair Andrea Lucas has taken to social media site X to solicit current or former employees to file complaints against their employers.

In what is believed to be the largest jury verdict ever for age discrimination, insurer Liberty Mutual was slammed with a $103 million verdict for firing an older worker returning from medical leave and replacing her with a 20-something new hire.

I have an employee out on workers’ compensation who did not apply for FMLA leave, though we think he’s eligible. Can I tell him he has to use FMLA concurrent with his workers’ comp leave?

The EEOC has recently made it clear that an enforcement priority going forward is protecting American workers from discrimination in favor of foreign workers. The agency updated its webpage portal for national-origin discrimination and provided a one-page information sheet directed at American workers who think they may have experienced national-origin discrimination.

It’s likely new return-to-work policies will face legal challenges, especially by disabled employees who have been using an accommodation like telework and performing their jobs well. Altering accommodations generally requires some change to performance or the underlying disability.