The Minnesota Supreme Court, the state’s highest court, decided to uphold the minimum wage ordinance which was enacted by the City of Minneapolis back in 2017 and which will eventually require Minneapolis employers to pay workers $15.00 per hour.  Those Minneapolis-based employers which were holding out hope that the Minneapolis ordinance would ultimately not be…

Last fall ProPublica revealed that the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission has cited employers for discriminatory targeting of job ads on Facebook.  The ads in question excluded women and older workers through use of the micro-targeting tools provided by Facebook’s advertising platform.  Early in 2019, a similar practice came under fire by the Department of…

Inside or Outside Investigations of Employee Conduct or Complaints?

It almost goes without saying that it is imperative in these times that businesses conduct impartial, timely and thorough investigations of workplace misconduct, including employee complaints.  Doing so gives businesses better chances to resolve issues, salvage employees, avoid litigation or at least better defend against liability.…

If you have eaten out recently, you may have seen an additional charge at the bottom of your bill that says something like “health care 3%” or “3.9% mandate compliance surcharge.” As restaurant and other service-industry employers face growing employee costs further eroding already razor-thin margins, many increasingly add extra charges to their bills to…

In December 2018, President Trump made his third appointment to the NLRB, giving the Republicans a majority on the five-person Board. 2019 has seen a number of Board decisions in which the Board reversed or narrowed its decisions made by a Board which was controlled by Democratic appointees.

Union Election Rules
In 2014, the NLRB…

Employment practices liability insurance (EPLI) is a popular product for employers of all sizes. Many companies obtain EPLI coverage by purchasing a package of insurance policies covering a variety of management risks, such as directors and officers liability, professional liability, and cyber security. Once the policies are in hand, reviewing your company’s voluminous insurance terms…

The Fair Labor Standards Act (“FLSA”) defines certain employees as exempt and others as nonexempt.  Nonexempt employees are generally entitled to receive overtime pay at a rate of at least one and one-half times the employee’s regular rate of pay.  Overtime is often easy to calculate on straight weekly earnings, but what happens when employees…

In the face of the ever-evolving world of social media, employers face a myriad of challenging ‎issues relating to their employees’ use of their own, personal sites, such as Facebook and blogs. ‎These issues include how to handle employees who post information about the employer, how to ‎deal with employees who use sites to harass…

Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison is leading the fight with 18 States’ Attorney Generals (AGs) to ask the federal government to ban employers from utilizing non-competition provisions with most employees. According to Ellison and the other AGs, such provisions constitute an “abusive practice,” especially with respect to “low wage” employees. In their opinion, such provisions…