Employment

Earlier this summer, a New Jersey appellate court, in Rodriquez v. Raymours Furniture enforced a provision in an employment application that reduced the period in which an employee could sue an employer to six months from the date of the adverse employment action.

More bad news for employers: Maryland’s Court of Appeals (its highest court) has now put to rest any question about an employee’s right to recover treble damages in connection with an unpaid overtime claim.

Wearable devices, including health and activity monitors, video and audio recorders, location trackers, and other interconnected devices in the form of watches, wristbands, glasses, rings, bracelets, belts, gloves, earrings, and shoes are being heavily promoted in the next wave of consumer electronics.

Last week, the NLRB took an exceptionally broad view of what constitutes “concerted activity” and what kind of efforts are aimed at “mutual aid or protection” under the National Labor Relations Act. For employers, this could mean increased Board scrutiny of internal investigations into employees’ complaints of harassment.

In somewhat of a surprise move, in the same week that New Jersey Governor Chris Christie signed into law the Opportunity to Compete Act, which prohibits employers from inquiring about job candidates’ criminal histories early in the hiring process (which we wrote about here), the Governor vetoed a bill prohibiting discrimination against the unemployed

My colleague Jennifer Rubin is quoted in this Sirius Decision blog post in which she responds to questions about employee LinkedIn use and other social media websites. The post focuses on establishing company guidelines for online behavior and networking.

An earlier post explained the two principle methods—the “monthly measurement method” and the “look-back measurement method”—available to applicable large employers to identify full-time employees for purposes of determining exposure for “assessable payments” under the Affordable Care Act’s employer shared responsibility rules.

Law360 recently quoted me in an article about the rise of FMLA lawsuits.

We previously wrote (here and here) about New Jersey’s proposed “ban the box” measure, known as the Opportunity to Compete Act, a law that would prohibit employers from inquiring about job candidates’ criminal histories early in the hiring process.

Understanding the mandates of the Americans with Disabilities Act and similar state and local laws is easy: employers cannot discriminate against individuals with disabilities.

Remember last fall when all we could talk about was the government shutdown?  The 16-day government shutdown captured the attention of a nation once again gripped by seemingly-manufactured political crisis.

In a previous post we discussed Foster v. Mountain Coal Company LLC, the District of Colorado’s decision invalidating a waiver of an employee’s claims against his employer under the Age Discrimination in Employment Act (ADEA) after the employee was terminated in connection with a reduction in force (RIF).

The National Labor Relations Board is attempting to expand the reach of the National Labor Relations Act once again – this time the NLRB’s Office of the General Counsel authorized formal complaints against McDonald’s USA, LLC, despite the fact that the alleged unfair labor practices occurred in restaurants owned by franchisees, and not McDonald’s.

While employers sometimes view the Affordable Care Act’s employer shared responsibility (or “pay-or-play”) rules in isolation, they don’t operate that way. Instead, they exist side-by-side with other provisions of the Act.

Federal contractors must be straining their necks to see if they have an actual target on their backs. Last week, President Obama signed an executive order that requires federal contractors to disclose labor and employment law violations dating back three years.

I recently wrote an article for SHRM's HR Magazine about Revenge Porn -- a vicious new way to smear someone’s professional reputation.

My colleague Donald Schroeder is quoted in this Corporate Counsel piece in which he comments on the potential effects of the legalization of micro labor unions on employers and the unionization landscape as a whole. The article focuses on the July 22nd ruling by the National Labor Relations Board in support of micro union organization efforts in the retail industry.

There is no such thing as “per se” unenforceability of non-compete agreements (with a few notable exceptions). Instead, a court will enforce a non-compete if it meets whatever criteria a particular jurisdiction establishes

Last week, Alabama Governor Robert Bentley removed Alabama State University Trustee Marvin Wiggins for violating the University’s conflict of interest rules. The removal proved once again that if you are responsible for the oversight of an organization’s governance or operations, you must be mindful of your family’s relationship to that organization.

The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA) ushered in broad national standards aimed at improving the efficiency and effectiveness of the U.S. health care system.