An employer instituted a no-fault attendance policy which allowed employees’ absence points to be reduced for each 30-day period of “perfect” attendance. An employee sued the company, based on the claim that his intermittent FMLA leave kept him from fully participating in that program. The lower court agreed with him, but the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit reversed the lower’s court’s decision, stating that the point reduction for perfect attendance may have…

Workplace burnout has been designated by the World Health Organization (WHO) as an “occupational phenomenon.” Employers should begin to formulate and implement mechanisms for dealing with the issue. The World Health Organization: WHO is headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland, and is a part of the United Nations that focuses on global health issues. The WHO has been working since 1948 on such issues as immunizations, health education, and smallpox and polio eradication. The United States is one…

The “minimum wage” is the minimum hourly wage that an employer must pay to a covered nonexempt employee for work, and is set by federal, state, and local law. The current federal minimum wage, which was set in 2009 under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), is $7.25/hour. States are able to set their own minimum wages, independent of the federal government’s $7.25/hour, and frequently set that number at a higher rate than the federal…

Some employers operate under the assumption that “at-will” employment means that an employee does not have to be given any reason for termination of his or her employment. However, that theory may allow an employee to overcome an employer’s motion to dismiss a discrimination lawsuit, since in order to overcome such a motion, a plaintiff simply has to set forth facts sufficient to state a “plausible” claim for relief. That standard means that a plaintiff…

The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) requires that employers reasonably accommodate employees with disabilities, including allowing modified work schedules when appropriate. One federal appellate court has addressed that issue, overlaid with the question of accommodating an employee’s postpartum depression after FMLA leave, and has held that a lower court wrongly concluded that full-time presence was an essential function of the employee’s position. Hostettler v. College of Wooster, 6th Cit., No. 17-3406, July 17, 2018. Heidi…

The European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) became effective on May 25, 2018. Companies have been working to understand the significance of those new rules, and to determine their effect on US companies. The purpose of the GDPR is to harmonize certain data privacy laws within the European Union (including the UK, for now). But it also covers businesses outside of the EU to the extent that those businesses sell goods or services –…

The Wage and Hour Division (WHD) of the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) issues guidance to employers and individuals through Opinion Letters, Ruling Letters, Administrator Interpretations, and Field Assistance Bulletins. An “Opinion Letter” is an official written opinion by WHD of how a particular law that WHD enforces applies in specific circumstances presented by an employer, employee, or other entity requesting the opinion. In 2010, the DOL abandoned the use of Opinion Letters, and Administrative Interpretations…