Employee work rules and policies continue to be controversial at the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB). Under President Obama, the NLRB determined that many common employer policies and work rules violated the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) because they interfered with and chilled employee rights to engage in protected concerted activity. The NLRB found these
Almost 2 million workers in the United States report that they have been victims of violence in their workplace each year. OSHA is focusing on workplace violence and employers need to be aware of their obligations to protect employees from known or foreseeable violent situations in the workplace.
OSHA (a division of
Recently, Quest Diagnostics, a company offering drug-testing services to employers, issued a report highlighting year-over-year double-digit increases in positive urine tests for marijuana between 2015–2017 in almost one-third of all U.S. industry sectors. The company has catalogued over thirty years of national workplace drug positivity trends, and it reports significant increased positive tests both in
In the latest move in the proverbial tug of war over possible changes to the overtime laws, the Department of Labor (“DOL”) announced a potential new rule on March 8 that would increase the salary required for the so-called “white collar exemptions” under the Fair Labor Standards Act from $23,660 to $35,308, with automatic cost
Businesses constantly search for ways to protect their competitive advantages, customer relationships, confidential business information and trade secrets. Non-competition agreements (which often include confidentiality provisions) are usually part of those protection efforts. Despite the belief of many employers (and employees) that these non-competition agreements are unenforceable and not worth the paper they’re written on, they
Companies are becoming more aware of the need for their websites to be accessible to people with disabilities. But what does this mean and what are the legal requirements? The current state of the law is in flux and the fact is, there is no clear set of criteria to which a company can look
The Minnesota legislature has once again taken up proposed legislation that would add language to the Minnesota Human Rights Act (MHRA) eliminating the U.S. Supreme Court’s standard for actionable sexual harassment, which requires it to be “severe or pervasive.” House File No. 10 and its companion Senate File No. 1307 propose adding the following sentence
When employees become dissatisfied with their union representation, they often ask questions of their employer as to how to get rid of their union. When a union no longer enjoys the support of unit employees, it can be decertified. Decertification is the process of formally removing recognition of a union as the authorized representative of
Most employers understand the importance of having a well-communicated policy that prohibits various forms of illegal harassment, including sexual harassment. Not only can such policies have the beneficial effect of reducing or eliminating the existence of such harassment in the workplace, but a documented program of addressing and correcting such problems can go a long
Cannabis remains illegal under federal law as a Schedule I drug, leaving states to craft their own marijuana-related laws in true patchwork fashion. By now, most states have enacted at least some form of medical marijuana law. State officials increasingly understand the benefits of medical marijuana for patients who have qualifying medical conditions. But acceptance