The federal Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification (WARN) Act generally requires that an employer with 100 or more workers provide 60 days notice of a plant closing or a mass layoff. However, an exception exists for “unforeseeable business circumstance.”
Lawyers USA explains in this article how a court recently determined that one ex-employer qualified for this exception.
St. Louis law firm Harris, Dowell, Fisher and Harris has posted its analysis of the new “Employee Free Choice Act” coming from Washington, DC. There’s lots more to it besides eliminating employee free choice from the process of unionization.
In the current Congress, the House passed the Employee Free Choice Act (“EFCA”). Although current economic difficulties suggest that passing this legislation will not be an immediate priority for the President and Congress in early 2009, organized labor support was very important in the 2008 Democratic Party electoral success, and the EFCA has long been at the top of labor’s wish list. It is, therefore, expected to be reintroduced and to enjoy substantial Congressional and Presidential support.
Here’s the full posting.
Las Vegas attorney Jacquelyn Leleu writes in the Nevada Business Journal that employers need to know Congress has made it easier for them to be sued…
As further indication of its intent to broaden the ADA’s protection, Congress has provided that “major life activities” include, but are not limited to, “performing manual tasks, seeing, hearing, eating, lifting, bending, speaking, breathing, learning, reading, concentrating, thinking, communicating, and working.” Congress also added “major bodily functions,” such as digestive, immune system, and brain functions, to a non-exhaustive list of “major life activities,” which potentially opens the door for those suffering from cancer, liver disease, multiple sclerosis and diabetes.
Today’s Wall Street Journal reports from the floor of a tiny Ohio tile maker, where a third of the employees were just laid off.
The U.S. is losing jobs at a pace not seen since the 1940s. Monday alone, 65,000 fresh layoffs were announced at giants including Caterpillar and Home Depot.
But tiny firms like Summitville Tiles have an outsized role in employment. For the past decade, small businesses have created 60% to 80% of net new jobs. Small companies of 500 or fewer people employ more than half of the country’s private-sector workers.
The Phoenix Business Journal today listed the workplace initiatives expected from President Obama, including a national minimum wage of $9.50 per hour. This would push Nevada’s minimum wage to over $10 per hour because of Nevada’s voter initiative earlier this decade to keep the Silver State’s minimum wage $1 higher than the feds.
Employee lawyer George Lenard has put together an incredible post outlining his theory on how federal employer regulators might go about ordering a money-losing window factory in Illinois to reopen and continue losing money. With the federal government poised to outlaw unionization elections, many much smaller employers in America are likely to find themselves becoming union shops.
It appears that the government’s first action of 2009 is to tip the employer-employee teeter-totter of legal action further away from the employer. As with most expansions of regulation of employment, good intentions are likely to sweep some good employers under the rug with the bad ones. Here are the details on the “Lilly Ledbetter” act which President Obama is expected to sign into law by the end of the month.
It is essential that at all times our employees treat each other, and those with whom they come into contact, with courtesy, respect and professionalism; and that they work cooperatively and constructively in resolving issues or problems.
I was inspired to put that on my wall by a posting today on HR.blr.com titled: “Jerks At Work – You Can Deal With Them.” It’s got a five step plan on dealing with jerks. The first step is to “state your values” – which I did with that statement on my wall.
It’s a trend amongst businesses that are surviving this tough time… so says the Wall Street Journal.
What is it? Click the link to read the post…
