Labor & Employment Law

Be Careful about who you call your

Posted on October 19, 2009
Be Careful about who you call your friend. You all know that I use Twitter on occasion and the same holds true about Facebook. Those of you that know me also know I am the shy retiring type of person who never speaks their mind. That means that I won?t use Twitter or Facebook to their full potential, but at least I won?t bore you will the details of every aspect of my life...

I'm not a techie....When I meet

Posted on July 13, 2009
I'm not a techie....When I meet with people, especially after I speak about privacy and technology in the workplace, I often hear, "I'm not a techie so why do I have to understand social networking, texting, Blogging and cell phones." Usually this is followed by a litany of the evils associated with new technology...

Non-competition Agreements:Ten

Posted on June 06, 2009
Non-competition Agreements:Ten (10) Cautionary ThoughtsPeople do odd things when they enter into a new relationship. I call it the honeymoon period. It's a time when it is all good, your vision is clouded by optimism that overlooks faults or problems that are visible to everyone else...

Facebook habit leads to job lossSocial

Posted on May 09, 2009
Facebook habit leads to job lossSocial networking can have its benefits. It can also have its drawbacks. Consider the case of a woman in Switzerland who was fired for being on Facebook while she off of work sick. When I first read the teaser for the article, my first thought was, "That's horrible...

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Seattle Law Bloggers MeetAbout

Posted on April 25, 2009
Seattle Law Bloggers MeetAbout once a quarter the Seattle Law Bloggers get together to share ideas on everything from Blogging techniques to practice management. The last meeting was held at Spitfire a local bar just north of the heart of downtown Seattle...

Cheer Leading Coach gets Dooced!!!The

Posted on April 20, 2009
Cheer Leading Coach gets Dooced!!!The term "dooced" used to mean that you were fired for something that you put on your Blog or website. The term was coined by Blogger Heather Armstrong when she was fired for commenting about her work on her Blog, dooce...

For all you lawyers out there.I

Posted on April 15, 2009
For all you lawyers out there.I came across a quote from the famous trial lawyer, Richard "Racehorse" Haynes, that I think any lawyer that tries cases can identify with:"I would have won them [all], if my clients hadn't kept reloading their gun and firing...

Cracker Barrel settles sex harassment

Posted on April 14, 2009
Cracker Barrel settles sex harassment lawsuitCracker Barrel just settled a sexual harassment lawsuit with the EEOC. (Click here to read article) The allegations surrounding this claim were that the General Manager, Managers and male employees, at the Cedar Bluff, Tennessee Cracker Barrel, subjected female employees to lewd comments and sexual jokes...

Romance... I just came across

Posted on April 07, 2009
Romance... I just came across Vault's 2009 Office Romance Survey. Before I talk about the survey, here's my disclaimer. This seems to be a voluntary Internet survey and I have no idea how many people participated and whether it has any scientific validity...

2.3 Million reasons to have an

Posted on April 06, 2009
2.3 Million reasons to have an effective training program On Wednesday of last week, a Los Angeles jury returned a verdict in favor of Officer Melissa Borck in a lawsuit against the Los Angeles Police Department. The verdict: $2,300,000.00. (To read more click here...

Posted on March 04, 2009

Washington Employers: Workplace

Posted on February 25, 2009
Washington Employers: Workplace PostersThe Department of Labor and Industries has updated three of its workplace posters which are required to be posted in a conspicuous place in the workplace. The updated posters are:1. Job Safety and Health Law (click here to download)2...

Correction to Cobra Bites PostLast

Posted on February 24, 2009
Correction to Cobra Bites PostLast week I posted an update on the legislative changes to COBRA that are part of the economic stimulus package. In that post I indicated that individuals that paid for COBRA at the full rate since September 1, 2008 would be able to receive a reimbursement for 65% of the premiums paid since under the terms of the new legislation they are "assistance eligible individuals...

EEOC settles sex harassment case

Posted on February 18, 2009
EEOC settles sex harassment case for $200K plusAccording to the EEOC, a female employee (Bell) that worked in the Service Department at Murphy Ford, in Chester, Pennsylvania, was the victim of sexual harassment perpetrated by the store Service Manager...

CAUTION: COBRA may bite.Employers

Posted on February 17, 2009
CAUTION: COBRA may bite.Employers that employ 20 or more people are required to comply COBRA. What that means is these employers have to allow departing employees the option to continue their health insurance by paying the premium, as well as, a 2 % administrative fee...

1.55 Million Reasons to get your

Posted on February 15, 2009
1.55 Million Reasons to get your act together...The EEOC recently announced that it settled a claim brought against Merrill Lynch for the sum of $1,550,000. In it's lawsuit the EEOC alleged that Merrill Lynch refused to promote and terminated Majid Borumand because of his Muslim faith and Iranian descent...

Law Firm sues former Associate

Posted on February 12, 2009
Law Firm sues former Associate for educational expenses.When employees elect to leave an employer, they often fail to consider whether they have obligations to their employer. Although I don't know if that was the case in a matter involving an associate at the Perkins Coie law firm but according to a recent article (click here to read), Perkins Coie is suing one of its associates for approximately $36,000 in educational expenses paid by the firm...

Rod's Reminder:Don't forget about

Posted on February 08, 2009
Rod's Reminder:Don't forget about the WLADWashington is one of those few states that has a strong state law against discrimination, the Washington Law Against Discrimination (WLAD). Too often when employers enter into to a dialogue of sexual harassment, and other forms of discriminatory conduct, they tend to focus on the federal components of the law (i...

Severance AgreementsSince I represent

Posted on January 31, 2009
Severance AgreementsSince I represent employers and employees, I have mixed feelings about severance agreements. Originally, severance was a benefit that was offered to employees to reward them for their length of service and loyalty to the company. That original concept has evolved...

EarthquakeThis morning I woke up

Posted on January 30, 2009
EarthquakeThis morning I woke up to find out we had an earthquake here in the Seattle area. Depending on who you listen to it was 4.5 or 4.6 magnitude earthquake. I slept right through it. Those of you that have been in an earthquake know that it's not that big a deal until it his a 5 plus magnitude...

IBM and Papermaster settle In my

Posted on January 27, 2009
IBM and Papermaster settle In my November 18, 2008 (Apple and IBM mix it up), I wrote about a lawsuit filed by IBM against Mark Papermaster, its guru of IBM?s Power Architecture and X-64 Blade Servers. The gist of the lawsuit was that Papermaster allegedly violated his non-competition agreement with IBM when he accepted a position with Apple that gave him oversight of the iPod and iPhone...

New U.S. Supreme Court decisionFolks,

Posted on January 26, 2009
New U.S. Supreme Court decisionFolks, this one is hot off the presses.This involves a lawsuit brought by an employee (Crawford) against the Metropolitan Government of Nashville (Metro). Crawford, in response to an internal investigation related to rumors of sexual harassment by her supervisor (Hughes), reported that Hughes had sexually harassed her...

Paralegals and Executive AssistantsThe

Posted on January 23, 2009
Paralegals and Executive AssistantsThe unsung heroes....I can remember my first paralegal. Her name was Rita. When I got out of law school she had been at her vocation for probably thirty years. Although I knew the theory of how to build a rocket, the truth was I never built rocket and certainly never launched a rocket...

Congratulations President Obama

Posted on January 20, 2009
Congratulations President Obama Since its adoption, our office has been closed on the Martin Luther King, Jr. holiday. This year, given the historic nature of the presidential election, our office is also closed on Inauguration Day. Regardless of whom you voted for, this past presidential election confirmed the American Dream...

Birch Bay Resort settles same sex

Posted on January 16, 2009
Birch Bay Resort settles same sex harassment caseWorldmark by Wyndham, according to the EEOC, has just settled a same sex harassment claim for the sum of $370,000. According to the EEOC, a manager touched victims, commented on their appearance and created sexually charged situations...

Dentist settles sex harassment

Posted on January 15, 2009
Dentist settles sex harassment lawsuit.A Chicago dentist was recently sued by the EEOC. According to the EEOC, the dentist sexually propositioned female employees, touched them in an unwelcome manner and required them, as part of their job, to attend Scientology seminars...

Employer AlertI don't know about

Posted on January 05, 2009
Employer AlertI don't know about you, but I have enjoyed taking some time off during the holidays. Rarely do you know how much you need rest until you get it. So I guess the good news, to quote the Governor of California, "I'm baaack!!!"With the new year starting, Washington employers should be aware that the state minimum wage has increased to $8...

div style="text-align: justify;

Posted on December 19, 2008
div style="text-align: justify; font-family: arial;"div style="text-align: center;"span style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(255, 0, 0);font-size:180%;" EMPLOYER ALERT/spanbr /span style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(255, 0, 0);font-size:180%;" NEW DOL FORMS/spanbr //divbr /The Department of Labor(DOL) has just announced that it has issued new forms for use in the FMLA process...

Mumbai: The HR wake up call. The

Posted on December 10, 2008
Mumbai: The HR wake up call. The events that unfolded recently in Mumbai, India were tragic. My prayers go out to those who have suffered as a result of this horrific event. The unfortunate aspect of an event like Mumbai is that is illustrates how vulnerable we all are to terrorist acts and cataclysmic events...

Don?t Circle the Wagons....When

Posted on December 03, 2008
Don?t Circle the Wagons....When tough economic times hit, it is easy to succumb to the tendency to cut every program that is not essential. Often these cost cutting measures target training, employment manual reviews/revisions and annual policy reviews...

IBM and Apple mix it upI haven?t

Posted on November 18, 2008
IBM and Apple mix it upI haven?t seen something take over the news like this since Microsoft and Google went after each other as a result of Google?s hiring of Kai-Fu Lee. (Click here to read about that case.) That case ultimately resulted in a settlement or, as lawyers tend to say, ?It has been resolved to the satisfaction of the parties...

Repeated violation of non-compete

Posted on October 20, 2008
Repeated violation of non-compete lands man in jailA Texas man who claims he loves to dance and claims dance is in his soul was jailed by a judge in Texas for repeatedly violating a non-compete agreement that prohibited him from operating a business within a defined geographical distance from his former employer...

10 Tips on Defensible DocumentationI

Posted on October 08, 2008
10 Tips on Defensible DocumentationI am often asked for tips on documentation practices that are ?legally defensible.? Truthfully, the recipe for legally defensible documentation begins with common sense and ends with a consideration of who your audience will ultimately be...

Common Mistakes in Documentation

Posted on September 29, 2008
Common Mistakes in Documentation and RecordkeepingYour company?s record keeping and document retention practices will often be the difference between winning and losing a lawsuit. Over the years I have seen a variety of areas where employers and human resources professionals get themselves in trouble...

Scolari's settles sex harassment

Posted on September 23, 2008
Scolari's settles sex harassment lawsuitScolari's is a food and drug store with 19 outlets in northern California and Nevada. The company just settled sexual harassment claims made a group of women for $425,000.00. According to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), "Some Scolari's managers verbally harassed the women, touched them inappropriately, "propositioned them, made lewd comments and passed around naked photos of themselves, among other acts...

Keystone Dental settles UTSA claim

Posted on September 04, 2008
Keystone Dental settles UTSA claim for $2 millionIf you are not familiar with the Uniform Trade Secrets Act (UTSA) and you are in business, perhaps, now is the time. UTSA claims are on the rise and the damages that can be paid out on these claims tend to be huge...

Sizzler gets burned for $300,000Sizzler

Posted on September 01, 2008
Sizzler gets burned for $300,000Sizzler USA just settled a sexual harassment lawsuit in which a former employee alleged she was the subject of sexual harassment in the form of unwelcome touching, unwelcome comments and physical threats. In addition to unwelcome comments about her body, the plaintiff, Patricia Huizache, was told that Mexican woman are ?stupid and only good for sex...

When will they learn?I have been

Posted on August 22, 2008
When will they learn?I have been doing this a long time. Every once in a while, in a moment of idealism,I start to believe that maybe, just maybe, every employer in the country is starting to get a clue when it comes to issues of sexual harassment. Then I read an article like this one posted at Firehouse...

Facebook comment leads to settlementAlthough

Posted on August 18, 2008
Facebook comment leads to settlementAlthough I don?t make it a habit of discussing cases that don?t involve claims under state or federal law, I came across an article while reading a London newspaper. The case was of interest because it seemed to be the perfect storm of what not to do...

7th Circuit: Joint Employer Doctrine

Posted on August 04, 2008
7th Circuit: Joint Employer Doctrine in context of the FMLAEmployer's that employ 50 or more employees in a 75 mile radius ( as the car drives not as the crow flies) must comply with the Family Medical Leave Act (FMLA).  In enacting the FMLA, Congress understood that small employers are always able to shoulder the financial burdens imposed by FMLA compliance...

New WISHA poster availableThe Washington

Posted on July 11, 2008
New WISHA poster availableThe Washington Department of Labor and Industries has announced that it has a new mandatory poster that must be posted by all employers in Washington State. To get the poster, click here. If you are not sure you have all Washington State required posters click here...

New Case Protects Privacy of Text

Posted on June 20, 2008
New Case Protects Privacy of Text MessagesThe Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, in a case entitled Quon v. Arch Wireless, held that text messages stored on the server of a cellular provider cannot be disclosed to an employer subscriber without the consent of the employee that is using the text messaging device...

Wednesday's Excuseon ThursdayTwo

Posted on June 19, 2008
Wednesday's Excuseon ThursdayTwo words that automatically invoke sympathy on the part of anyone:Root Canal.

11 Things to Think About Before

Posted on June 11, 2008
11 Things to Think About Before You Fire Firing an employee is difficult. Many times employers realize that an employee has to be let go, but put off the decision. Some explore other avenues to correct performance or behavior deficits, while others ignore the problem until it reaches a critical stage...

Employer Alert Washington Employers

Posted on June 04, 2008
Employer Alert Washington Employers should be mindful of the following laws that are going into effect. June 12, 2008 Leave for Military Spouses:This law applies to all employers, regardless of size and allows 15 days of leave to the spouse of individuals that are on leave from military deployment or before and up to military deployment...

Wednesday Excuse on a Thursday

Posted on May 29, 2008
Wednesday Excuse on a Thursday I don't know about you but 4 day workweeks throw my schedule out of whack. I love the 3 day weekend that comes along with it. Unfortunately, when I arrive at work on Tuesday, my brain says Monday. So even though its Thursday, I'm feeling Wednesday...

Wednesday's ExcuseLast week, I

Posted on May 22, 2008
Wednesday's ExcuseLast week, I was trying to find a good excuse while at the Mid-Town Station Coffee House and Wine Bar in Sumner. The owner promised that she would have a good excuse for me this week. So here it is:I couldn't make it in because I was eating caramel cheesecake...

More thoughts on TelecommutingAs

Posted on May 20, 2008
More thoughts on TelecommutingAs gas prices continue to spiral upward, telecommuting is an excellent way for a company to lessen the economic impact on employees and to be viewed as a good corporate neighbor by decreasing the carbon footprint of your workforce and traffic congestion...

Wednesday's Excuse-Late Edition

Posted on May 14, 2008
Wednesday's Excuse-Late Edition So I?m sitting at the Mid-Town Station Coffee House and Wine Bar. We just call it the Mid-Town. Great restaurant by the Sound Transit Station in scenic downtown Sumner, Washington. The nice thing about a city like Sumner is that you tend to run into people that run the small businesses that are the backbone of our country...

Wednesday?s Excuse?I won't be able

Posted on May 07, 2008
Wednesday?s Excuse?I won't be able to come in today. It seems that I have some unknown contagious disease; but I'll be fine on Monday."

Wednesday?s ExcuseThis is an excuse

Posted on April 30, 2008
Wednesday?s ExcuseThis is an excuse that will only work in the rainy Pacific Northwest:?Dude, it?s sunny outside and I?m Vitamin D deficient!?

Gas Up + Economy Down = Dissatisfied

Posted on April 29, 2008
Gas Up + Economy Down = Dissatisfied EmployeesRecently, I had the distinct pleasure of gassing up for the bargain price of $3.93 a gallon. As I was getting ready to leave, I was approached by a young man that just paid a whopping $137 to fill up his diesel pickup truck...

Wednesday's ExcuseCan't make it

Posted on April 24, 2008
Wednesday's ExcuseCan't make it in. I have a chance of filling in for someone on jury duty.

Dentist gets hit for doing more

Posted on April 19, 2008
Dentist gets hit for doing more that just flossingWhile enrolled in the Bryman College dental assistant program, Candace Wahl was placed in an unpaid externship at Dash Point Family Dental Clinic. The clinic was co-owned and operated by Dr. Don S. Moore...

CorrectionMany thanks to one of

Posted on April 11, 2008
CorrectionMany thanks to one of our readers who emailed me today to advise of an error in my post of April 9, 2008 @ 12:52 am. In that post, I stated that, the change in Washington law that allows leave for the spouse of an individual to be deployed or who is on leave from military deployment, goes into effect on July 12, 2008...

Wednesday's Excuse

Posted on April 09, 2008
Wednesday's Excuse I won't be in to work today. My brain is full.

EEOC holds Sunbelt Rentals Accountable

Posted on April 05, 2008
EEOC holds Sunbelt Rentals Accountable Clinton Ingram served our country in the United States Army. While in the Army, Ingram converted to Islam. After getting out of the military, he went to work for Sunbelt Rentals in Gaithersburg, Maryland. He started in October 2001, a month after the September 11th attacks...

Wednesday's ExcuseThis excuse falls

Posted on April 02, 2008
Wednesday's ExcuseThis excuse falls under the category of "if you don't have a good excuse, at least make your boss think you are being considerate.""Work???...I didn't want to be late AGAIN....so I decided to call in sick!!!"Nothing in this Blog should be considered legal advice or to form an attorney client relationship...

More Biometrics in the WorkplaceTechnology

Posted on March 28, 2008
More Biometrics in the WorkplaceTechnology has radically changed our perceptions of privacy. This change is evident with the manner we see Gen-Xers and Millenials treat their personal information on MySpace and Facebook. That same level of comfort with technology and openness with private information has entered the workplace...

Ohio Court rules private sex video

Posted on March 26, 2008
Ohio Court rules private sex video not admissible Kristina Conti, Emily Dutton and Shawna Smith worked for Spitzer Auto World. These employees alleged they were subjected to sexual harassment on nearly a daily basis. Ms. Conti alleged that two sales managers routinely viewed pornography on work computers and forced her to view pornography on a number of occasions that included acts of intercourse between men and women and women and women...

Wednesday?s Excuse My dog ate

Posted on March 20, 2008
Wednesday?s Excuse My dog ate my car keys and we?re taking the bus to the veterinarian?s office. Nothing in this Blog should be considered legal advice or to form an attorney client relationship. The information provided is general in nature. Nothing can substitute for a consultation with a legal professional who can address your particular legal problem...

Wednesday's ExcuseAs I was looking

Posted on March 13, 2008
Wednesday's ExcuseAs I was looking for a good Wednesday?s Excuse, I came across a web site that I have to admit takes the cake. The website, www.myexcusedabsence.com , purports to provide employees with ?absence notes for every occasion.? As near as I can tell this company sells templates for employees to use in creating a fake doctor?s note, emergency room visit note, and, believe it or not, a funeral service absence note which includes a template for an entire funeral service...

New Washington State Workplace

Posted on March 12, 2008
New Washington State Workplace PostersThe State of Washington, Department of Labor and Industries recently announced the availability of the new ?Your Rights? posters that must be posted in the workplace. The new posters contain updated information for workers related to their rights under the Family Care Act and Family Leave Act...

Wednesday?s Excuse It?s really

Posted on March 04, 2008
Wednesday?s Excuse It?s really not that hard to come up with an acceptable reason to miss work. You don?t have to go to extremes. Take the example of the man in Pasco, Washington who decided he didn?t want to go to work because of possible drug testing...

Waterboarding at Work???According

Posted on March 03, 2008
Waterboarding at Work???According to an article in The Salt Lake Tribune , an employee has sued their employer alleging the employer used several unconventional motivational techniques. The employee alleges that his former employer allowed a supervisor to draw mustaches on employee's faces, take away their chairs and beat on their desks with wooden paddles because it "resulted in increased revenues for the company...

Thursdays Excuse for Wednesday's

Posted on February 27, 2008
Thursdays Excuse for Wednesday's ExcuseI wish I could tell you that I never forget, but I was preparing for a speaking engagement at a seminar, entitled Employment Law from A to Z, and "I forgot" until I was listening to one of the speakers that preceded me who was speaking about individuals who abuse leave time...

It's not always what it seems....

Posted on February 20, 2008
It's not always what it seems.... Consider the following: 1. You receive an email accusing a male employee of a sexual relationship with a female co-worker. 2. Next you receive a package, bearing the return address of the female co-worker, that contains what are purported to be nude photographs of the male employee with his face obscured...

Wednesday's Excuse"Got something

Posted on February 13, 2008
Wednesday's Excuse"Got something going on tonight and I quit. Next week, I will go apply at Pizza Hut. Hey, can I keep the hat?"

Wednesday's Excuse Employee:

Posted on February 05, 2008
Wednesday's Excuse Employee: I don't have a ride into work. Employer: You live 2 blocks away. Employee: Yeah, but it is supposed to rain tonight. Employer: I will drive you back home. Employee: That's OK...

The ?Windermere Way? is not the

Posted on February 01, 2008
The ?Windermere Way? is not the Court?s Way Windermere, a large real estate company, was sued by one of its employees for commissions due. As part of the employment agreement with Windermere, the employee had to agree to arbitrate disputes rather than going to court...

Wednesday?s ExcuseThis week we

Posted on January 30, 2008
Wednesday?s ExcuseThis week we have two excuses that appear to have been given by people that were related:?I dreamed I was fired, so I didn?t get out of bed.??I went all the way to the office and realized I was still in my pajamas and had to go home and change...

Wednesday's ExcuseIt was a really

Posted on January 22, 2008
Wednesday's ExcuseIt was a really hot day, causing the molecules on the surface of the road to expand, with a significant resultant increase in the distance between my home and work.Obviously, science was an area of expertise to the this employee.

Think before you Fire and then

Posted on January 18, 2008
Think before you Fire and then Think Again In 1998, Debbie Bonidy was hired as dental assistant at a dental clinic, in Vail, Colorado. The dental clinic was run by Dr. Harding. About year after Debbie was working there, Dr. Harding changed the employees? schedules...

New Microsoft PatentAccording to

Posted on January 16, 2008
New Microsoft PatentAccording to the TimesOnline, Microsoft has just published a patent application for software that will allow an employer to remotely monitor an employee's heart rate, movement, body temperature, facial expression and blood pressure...

Wednesday's ExcuseCall received

Posted on January 15, 2008
Wednesday's ExcuseCall received by the boss on a Sunday. "Dude, I am still trippin', I dropped some LSD on Friday night. There is no way I can work today." Well, you have to admire his honesty. I wonder if he is related to the guy who was late for work because "my drug dealer showed up late...

Starting today, each Wednesday

Posted on January 09, 2008
Starting today, each Wednesday we will publish one real life work excuse. If you have used an especially creative excuse or know of one that was used, send it to me for consideration in future posts. I am not condoning these excuses, but sometimes you have to give credit for creativity and/or candor...

Harassment by jilted boyfriend

Posted on December 28, 2007
Harassment by jilted boyfriend is "because of sex"Allison Forrest was a server at Chilli's Bar and Grill in Portland, Maine. She had an "on again off again" intimate relationship with a coworker, who was a line cook. Once Allison began dating another man, her ex-boyfriend began to call her vulgar names that are highly offensive to females...

Year End Reminders from UsEffective

Posted on December 27, 2007
Year End Reminders from UsEffective January 1, 2008, the minimum wage will be $8.07 per hour.Effective January 1, 2008, Washington will prohibit text messaging while driving. In July of 2008, all drivers in Washington will have to use a hands-free cell phone while driving...

Pregnancy Related Discrimination

Posted on December 06, 2007
Pregnancy Related Discrimination is Sex Discrimination under the WLADOn November 30, 2007, the Washington Supreme Court decided Hegwine v. Longview Fibre. This case stands for two important propositions. The first is pregnancy discrimination claims should be analyzed, under the Washington Law Against Discrimination (WLAD), as sex discrimination claims rather than as a failure to accommodate a disability...

Washington Supreme Court decides

Posted on November 12, 2007
Washington Supreme Court decides ?drive time? case In Stevens v. Brinks, the Washington Supreme Court was asked to decide if service technicians who were provided with company trucks that they took home every night were entitled to be paid for their drive time from home to a job site and back...

Washington Minimum Wage Increase

Posted on October 12, 2007
Washington Minimum Wage Increase Coming UpI know that employers have many items on their plate at this time of year. In Washington, this is the time of year is when employers learn the results of the annual recalculation of the state minimum wage that occurs as a result of the voter approved Initiative 688...

Screening: Do it RightWashington

Posted on September 23, 2007
Screening: Do it RightWashington employers who perform background or credit checks on their employees have to be well versed in their obligations under the Fair Credit Reporting Act (the federal law) as well as the Washington State Fair Credit Reporting Act...

Screening ConsiderationsEmployers

Posted on August 19, 2007
Screening ConsiderationsEmployers have been slow to recognize that performing background, reference and credit checks trigger obligations under the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA). Many employers, mistakenly, believe that since the FCRA states it applies to ?consumers? they do not have to satisfy the requirements of the Fair Credit Reporting Act when performing a reference credit history and/or criminal background checks...

Background Checks: Are they necessary?According

Posted on July 31, 2007
Background Checks: Are they necessary?According to the Workplace Violence Research Institute, every day, in workplaces throughout the country, approximately 16,400 workers are threatened, 723 employees are attacked and 43,800 employees are harassed. Annually, there are approximately 600 homicides that occur each year within the workplace...

Exit Interviews: How to Handle

Posted on July 24, 2007
Exit Interviews: How to Handle Bad News All things being equal, why wouldn't an employer conduct an exit interview? Fear. They fear they will learn information that might be detrimental to their company. Let?s take that fear head on. If there is a problem that led to the departure of an employee, that problem won?t go away just because you didn?t ask about it...

Conducting an Exit Interview

Posted on July 15, 2007
Conducting an Exit Interview To maximize the effect of an exit interview it should be held in a private office, away from the employee?s usual work area and be conducted by an individual outside of the employee?s supervisory chain. The individual selected to conduct the interview should be neutral, non-threatening, and a good listener...

Exit Interviews Easily Overlooked-Too

Posted on July 06, 2007
Exit Interviews Easily Overlooked-Too Valuable to Disregard What is an exit interview? Exit interviews are individual meetings to question departing employees about their reason for leaving as well as their attitudes and observations about the company...

Washington adopts Family Leave

Posted on June 09, 2007
Washington adopts Family Leave Insurance ProgramWashington recently enacted a Family Leave Insurance Program that will go into effect July 1, 2008. (Although the law is effective on July 1, 2008, no benefits will be paid out until October 2009.) Under the Family Leave Insurance Program (FLIP) employees are entitled to time off for the birth or adoption of a child, with up to five weeks of pay to be supplied by a state fund...

College gets ?schooled? on wages

Posted on May 25, 2007
College gets ?schooled? on wages and handbooksWhitworth College was sued by Dr. Mega after he was terminated from a tenured position as a professor. At the heart of Dr. Mega?s claim was whether Whitworth complied with promises made in its handbook when he was terminated...

Is that cell phone worth the risk?

Posted on May 15, 2007
Is that cell phone worth the risk? Cell phones have become an integral part of business. With the advent of the BlackBerry and Nextel, and countless other variations on those concepts, we can be connected to our jobs 24 hours a day. I have had people tell me they feel lost if they leave home without their cell phone or BlackBerry...

Employee HandbooksTen Mistakes

Posted on May 09, 2007
Employee HandbooksTen Mistakes Should your company have an employee handbook? Absolutely. A properly drafted employee handbook allows management to communicate their expectations to their workforce. Unfortunately, all handbooks are not created equal...

New USERRA CaseThe 11th Circuit

Posted on March 26, 2007
New USERRA CaseThe 11th Circuit Court of Appeals, in its decision in Tully v. Department of Justice, provided employers with insight into the application of those portions of the USERRA (Uniformed Services Employment and Reemployment Rights Act of 1994) that relate to leave benefits while on furlough or leave of absence...

Concluding the Investigation

Posted on March 18, 2007
Concluding the Investigation Once the investigation has been completed, it is time to prepare a written report. Remember, your notes are evidence and once you have notice of a claim, your destruction of those notes could be viewed as spoliation of evidence...

Wal Mart Class Action CertifiedThe

Posted on February 20, 2007
Wal Mart Class Action CertifiedThe Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a the certification of a class of individuals, comprising approximately 1.5 million women, who were employed by Wal Mart since December 26, 1998, who, it is alleged, were discriminated against in pay and promotions based on their sex...

Interviewing the Accused Workplace

Posted on January 18, 2007
Interviewing the Accused Workplace investigations can place employers in the awkward position of having to ferret out the truth between two parties, each of whom appears credible. For that reason, many employers choose not to conduct an investigation or, worse, they interview the reporting party without interviewing the accused and corroborating witnesses...