On Tuesday, January 13, 2015, the United States Supreme Court heard oral arguments in Mach Mining LLC v. EEOC, 13-1019, the outcome of which will have a significant effect on the EEOC conciliation process and a case we have posted on this blog previously. The dispute revolves around whether — and to what extent — […]
New Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) reporting requirements went into effect on January 1, 2015. These new rules require all employers, even those who are exempt from routinely keeping OSHA injury and illness records due to company size or industry, to report all work-related fatalities, hospitalizations, amputations, and losses of an eye to OSHA. Employers […]
Employers in today’s society are faced with a variety of workplace challenges, from complying with complex and often confusing employment laws to effectively managing a diverse workforce comprised of individuals from a broad spectrum of society. Let’s face it: managing your workforce, making the right employment decisions with regard to hiring, promotions, and terminations; and […]
There is a great quote from Oliver Wendall Holmes on complexity: “I would not give a fig for the simplicity this side of complexity, but I would give my life for the simplicity on the other side of complexity”. Of course, there is the other great quote about complexity with its author of unknown origin: […]
On Monday, December 15, 2014, the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) issued rules that will speed up the union election process. Although the rules do not take effect until April 14, 2015, employers should be aware of them and start preparing for the changes now. Under the current rules, representation petitions are filed seeking to […]
Most states, including Wisconsin, have a statute that automatically revokes as beneficiary a divorced spouse once the divorce is final. See, e.g., Wis. Stat. § 854.15. This means that, unless your will, trust, IRA, 401(k), life insurance, etc., provides otherwise, once a divorce decree is final, an individual’s ex-spouse and the ex-spouse’s relatives receive nothing […]
The fourth sin is when the business owner makes the assumption that because the estate planning documents are complete, the succession plan is complete. An estate plan is a strategy for a person to take care of the people he or she cares about. The strategy incorporates two things: getting the right property to the […]
On December 11, 2014, in Purple Communications, Inc., the NLRB overturned its 2007 Register Guard decision and held that employees have the right to use their employers’ email systems for nonbusiness purposes, including communicating about union organizing. The NLRB emphasized the importance of email as a critical means of communication for employees, especially in today’s workplace culture, […]
On December 9, 2014, the Supreme Court of the United States issued its decision in Integrity Staffing Solutions, Inc. v. Busk et al., ruling that time spent waiting to undergo and undergoing security screenings after work each day is not compensable time under the Fair Labor Standards Act (“FLSA”). This case involved a collective claim […]
