It’s been another busy month in employment law, between agency rulings, court decisions and that small matter of health care reform currently in front of the Supreme Court. So let’s dive in!
As we reported earlier this month, the bad news is that yes, you must display that NLRA poster in your workplace by April 30. The good news is that if you don’t, you won’t be penalized unless you’re also actively engaging in union-suppression activities.
Social media continues to make headlines and case law. This month’s kerfuffle concerned prospective employers asking job candidates for their Facebook passwords. Law bloggers nationwide responded: “Bad idea!!” and a couple of states even introduced legislation to prohibit the practice.
Speaking of bad ideas surrounding social media, if you discover that your employees have started a blog that cruelly mocks another employee with a disability and that they access it from work computers? Shut it down ASAP, or you could find yourself liable for harassment.
The FMLA has been in the news too: New FMLA forms have been issued, but they’re not really that new. In fact, they don’t even contain updated information on military leave policies and the Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act. Which begs the question: Why even bother issuing new forms? We’ve also gotten a little more insight into potential leave violations caused by calls and email.
Another administrative change is the list of new rules for disclosing 401(k) fees to employees. Here’s a handy schedule for what to disclose when, and to whom.
Also, the Wage and Hour Division of the Department of Labor has issued a ruling regarding ownership of employee tips under the Fair Labor Standards Act.
Of course, the big news in employment law this month is the case currently before the Supreme Court of the United States challenging the constitutionality of the individual mandate portion of the proposed health care reform. As of posting time, the court hadn’t made a ruling yet, but we’ll let you know how this affects your business as soon as we receive news.
One development we can report—and a major source of relief for staffing firms—is that the requirement for all companies with more than 200 employees to enroll all of them in a health care plan by 2014 has been delayed, since the official regulations for the rule won’t be ready in time.
And finally, we close with The Case of the Orange Shirts: Employees of a Florida law firm were fired for wearing orange shirts. Bizarre? Yes. Legal? Yes, apparently, since they weren’t wearing the shirts to protest anything. Or were they? We’ll definitely keep you posted as this case develops.