Employment Law for Employers

employers liability

DWEBB — Sat, 21 Nov 2009 02:39:03 GMT

A mechanics helper completes work on a vehicle he then takes it out to make sure it is running correctly, the hood did not latch completely (unknown to him) and pops up and smashes the windshield. Is the mechanics helper held responsible for damages or is this the responsibility of the shop owner.

IS THIS RIGHT?

hanson34 — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 18:47:11 GMT

Hi,My brother has a union shop mostly he does Hotel & cosinos work ,unfortunatly his bids are told to other companies so he would loose his work , since 4 year his contract are canseled by someone working at the hotel,can they cansel PO# after he got the contract. Also how does his compitition and union had his bidding prices and he lost that bid even they told him that he is the lowest bid.

Laid Off

Agapelv — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 20:22:18 GMT

I was recently laid off and I posted my forum a couple weeks ago regarding if I had a claim. Well, I kept in contact with the company because they were trying to figure out what happened and how to come up with a resolution of my termination. So on Monday, I received a call from the HR Manager stating that they came up a resolution and was sending me a package to go over. I received the package and its a Separation and Release Agreement regarding my separation from them and offered me almost $4K lump sum, less all applicable income tax withholding and other lawful deductions. It listed status of employment, status of compensation and benefits and separations benefits, a waiver of release, stating that I agree to release and forever discharge the company and its respective parents etc.; covenant not to sue, confidentiality, employment references (they would not contest to me filing for unemployment benefits) payment of compensation, non disparagement, notice of revocation periods, return of property, remedies for breach of certain convenants, nature of agreement (that I agree and understand that nothing in this agreememtn is an admission by the company of any liability or unlawful conduct whatsoever) and 14 days to make my decision. Do I really need to get find some money to see an employment law attorney or just sign the paper and accept the money? I never asked them for money, just my job back!

Layoffs & Retirement in Georgia

QuickQuestionGA — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 16:14:50 GMT

Specifically for Georgia, if an employee is of retirement age & has retirement savings in the company, must the company offer the employee the retirement package before/during the layoff process?

Again, for Georgia, if the employee (retirement-eligible through the company) is terminated, for reasons other than layoffs, must the company offer the employee his retirement package?

Thanks, in advance, for your replies!

Consultant ran away!!!!!

manila — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 21:52:20 GMT

I was under a contract with a consultant and working for DC govt. Yesterday she sent a genric mail that she has closed the office. I had a huge amount pending with her and now she is nowhere to trace. I would like to know what are my legal rights and options?

Please help....

texas unemloyment

Megan80 — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 16:04:29 GMT

I was asked kindly to leave my job but with no specific time range. but they were also already interviewing for the position. at the time regardless i was going to have to leave because i did not have anyone to care for my children at the time. so i choose my own time to leave. would i be able to get unemployment benefits? i have been able to work now and have looked for a job and havent had success yet.

Texas: question regarding disclosure of personal info

Lunaverde — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 08:37:59 GMT

Hi! I am a shift manager for a restaurant in Texas, and was speaking with a customer on the phone who became irrate and demanded to know my name (first and last). I gave him my first name and told him there was no one else by that name at the store and the GM would know exactly who he was referring to. I refused to give him my last name over the phone. I told my GM about the situation today to see if the guy had gone ahead and complained about what had happened, well my GM told me I absolutely had to give out my last name to any customer who asks for it because I am a manager. I honestly do not like that thought. A first name is more than sufficient information for any customer who has a complaint to lodge against me.

My question is, is there a law that states specifically that I do not have to give out such information if I choose not to?

My aunt need help.

VP77 — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 17:18:03 GMT

Hi I'm here according to my aunt case. I have not much knowledge of California Labor Law so I don't know how to help her. From the story my aunt told me,My aunt she came from Thailand she village ... lady,she was employ by a Thai man that work for Thai embassy here in California. She working for him as his personal assistant,her duties was housekeeping,baby sitting,cooking,laundr... time of work is 5.00 am&n... time of work unspecific. The employer didn't know my aunt if my aunt have any relative in America. She was employ from November/11/2008,with the contract,I'm not sure what kind of contract she sign in Thai law or California law,but the employer hold on to the contract and did not give the copy of contract either is her passport. My aunt told me in her visa indicate that she has 2 years of staying in America but in the contract I don't know how long she supposed to work for him. Before she arrive t... put her land for the loan to employer mother for 9,8000 bath thai so it's $2969,the money is for her son wedding,so they have verbal agreement that when she started to work she will not get paid till she paid off her loan,so worked for 10 months without getting paid,she started to get pay from Sep/1/2009 they pay her in exchange of Thai bath 15,000 bath so it's about $400 a month in cash. She told me in the contract she suppose to get $600/month at least,2 days off a month he said. I have brought my aunt to stayed with me for 2 days during her day off that was 2 weeks ago,then he told me I can bring her back anytime. My aunt was surprise&nbsp... thankful. Certainly after I met with the employer as the relative of my aunt,he decided to going sent her back to Thailand on December. Now this time he told my aunt that he can't pay her the rest of money in hand but he would have to wire the money to her bank account instead due to new California Labor Law. My aunt got very scared and she didn't know what to do,even though I told her to ask the employer for her copy of contract. Also she didn't want to create the problem between the employer and she didn't have money for lawyer. My aunt said she didn't have a problem going back because she can't handle it any longer Please help my aunt,I didn't know how to help her either,I already called labor law company to discuss about the case,,we need your professional suggestion about what should we do? We would appreciated your help. Thank you.

VP77

Hippa

jwrw — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 13:34:22 GMT

I Had to take a drug test. Supposely I was told it came back diluted. So I had to go and retest no problem. Well this one came back Positive for THC. Talking to another co-worker she told me that she heard that it the first one came back "Mucky." Never heard that. Then at a meeting where they are firing me. A supervisor tells me about another persons test. I was just wondering if this is a violation of Confidentialy.

Also when i got home from being fired. I was reading through my hand book and it says something about having the Split specimen Retested by another certified Lab. Well when i retested the only took a single specimen. So I brought this to my supervisors attention. My supervisor then came and picked me up at my house after work hours and took me to have another test done. With a supervised test. just wondering if this is how all this works out. Or if this is just outrages

Union Contract Law

M.C. In Maryland — Mon, 28 Sep 2009 06:38:17 GMT

Hello, I have started this thread in an effort to ascertain sound answers to some questions I have about my union. The union deals with security officers in the state of maryland. My questions are as follows:1 Can a union president sign a contract with an employer without the voting of said contract by the rank of file that is being affected by contract?? 2 If an employee has a just reason to initiate a griveance against an employer, can the union just say no and ignore the employees reasons for brining said griveance? Thank you in advance. Where could I look online here maybe to find out the law regarding the limitations of a union in the state of Maryland?

Docking Employee Pay???

LoriD79 — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 16:48:39 GMT

We require that our employees log time regarding the work that they do so that we can invoice our customers. If they don't log a minimum amount of time (32.5 hours per week) Can we deduct the difference from their pay? We pay them for 40 hours per week but some of them are only logging 20 hours per week. Because of this, we want to implement a minimum logging requirement (32.5 hours per week, 6.5 hours per day). Any answers would be greatly appreciated!

Being sued by an ex employee

srspring — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 00:26:22 GMT

We own a small Computer Repair Company in an "at will" employment state. We hired a very controlling 50 year old technician (that we trained) 3 years ago as a store manager of our main store. He had signed a very fair non-compete agreement. (Within 30 miles for 2 years) He bullied himself with us until he was the highest paid employee, received .58 mileage for any travel in his vehicle and was given $25.00 per week toward a health insurance plan that was not offered to any other employee, and was promoted to General Manager of our company.

Over the years he became very controlling telling us what to do or not to do. We felt trapped with an employee that we felt could harm our small company and regretfully kept him on. He was however a salaried employee from the beginning. A couple of months ago, he discovered that a computer part that we were installing in custom built computers was not the specification that we had advertised. This of course was an extremely honest mistake and we told him we would contact the customers and rectify the problem. It was only about 10 clients that had this mis-specked part.

This employee demanded that he call all of the customers immediately and started yelling at us. Somewhere along the line, he had appointed himself as the "General Manager" of our company. We let him have that title but it was never written into a contract etc. Anyway, he was yelling that he was the General Manager and he was going to do what he wanted etc. I called him on the phone with 3 employee witnesses on the other phones as per my instructions before I spoke with him.

When he got on the phone I advised him that I had had enough and he was no longer a General Manager to tell and bully everyone else around. I told him he was to remain as the store manager at the store he was presently managing. He was to remain at the same rate of pay and everything. The only stipulation was that he needed to stop the insubordination and bullying within the company and if he could not do that he would have to leave the Company because we would no longer tolerate it.

He said Okay and hung up. He then called us back a half an hour later saying that he has left and was demanding 3 weeks’ vacation (which he wasn't owed) he demanded that we make the non-compete agreement null and void and he demanded that we sell him the Business at a reasonable offer! He also informed us that he had $1,000.00 worth of our equipment in his car that he would hold as ransom.

The next day we got the Police to get him to return the equipment. Within a week he had opened a Business of his own about 10 miles away. Here is where the real problems started.

We went to a local lawyer and were directed to pay around $4,000.00 to have an injunction put against him to stop his business from violating the non-compete agreement. In the meanwhile, he had filed unemployment and said he was fired. They found him guilty. He said he was fired because he was told he was no longer the "General Manager". The Dept. of unemployment didn't buy it. He then transferred his new business into his wife's name. (I had asked our lawyer about this possibility and the lawyer said "Oh no, the judge can see through all of that.)

We decided that we had spent enough money; the lawyer's reference that the ex-employee transferring his new Business into his wife's name was not an issue actually became the issue! We paid our lawyer to send off an agreement to end it all at that point. Now we receive a notice from our lawyer that the ex employee is not in agreement with ending the matter but is demanding $11,000.00 from us for vacation pays, health insurance up to this day, lawyer fees and all kinds of stuff.

He is stating "Federal Fair Labor Standards Act" (But he was salaried) Deceptive Trade Practices Act And the "Wage payment act" Bottom line, our lawyer said that this happens all the time. It is best to pay him the $11,000.00 or pay more than that in more lawyers’ fees!!

He was just an employee who quit! Is this at all possible? Does anyone think that our lawyer has screwed us over? The ex-employee's lawyer used to be partners with our lawyer. Are they just working us? What do we do?? Any help or advice would be greatly appreciated. What are our legal grounds?

Personnel Files - Terminations in FL

HPSA — Thu, 28 Dec 2006 21:14:09 GMT

We terminated an employee who had been with us for less than ninety (90) days. He is requesting a copy of his personnel file. It is my understanding that there isn't a Federal or State law that requires us to comply with his request. Is this correct?

Also, is there an legal "time limit" for us to provide this employee with information regarding COBRA or how to file for unemployment benefits? What is considereed a "reasonable" timeframe?

Thank you!

Retention (Project Bonus) promised but ultimately denied

JohnR1602 — Mon, 21 Sep 2009 03:13:06 GMT

My wife worked for a subsidiary of a large corporation. Part of her job as a Director was to oversee and manage the software migration whereby they were switching out their old iventory management system for the corporate standard. The subsidary used to be a small familty owned business before being puchased by the corporation.

She learned that she was going to be laid off in May but they asked to her stay on until the software switch was complete since she was the main contact from her company. She was taken out of her director position and moved into a different position and her only responsibility was to manage the migration that would be complete by August or September. To make it worth her time to stay and easier on the company they promised a severence package and a retention (project completion bonus). They would not tell her how much the retention bonus was even after she officially requested it from HR and her manager (she has a copy of the email). They continued to keep the decision up in the air until she finally left on August 14th. They paid her her severence and the vacation pay they owed her and she just found out today (September 20, 2009) from her old boss that the retention bonus was denied by the head of North America.

Is there a way to sue the company for this? And if a lawsuit is possible, where would the lawsuit be filed?

We're not looking to get rich, but ultimately they backed out on a promise to pay her for her time. She was working 70-80 hours the final few weeks of this project to make sure it went as smooth as possible. She considers it a slap in the face to be disrespected about this even after her boss pleaded with the corporate office to pay her the bonus.

When the corporation first bought the company, they valued her enought o pay her a retention bonus if she stayed on for one year which she did and they paid her for it.

They can't argue against her work ethic or her knowledge since she was honored in a national magazine for being one of the Top 40 under 40. Things just got very political and people changed.

The subsidiary is located in AZ (and so is my wife) but their Corporate office is in California.

Termination of an employee.

rnjsqudghk — Sat, 12 Sep 2009 15:20:03 GMT

Good afternoon!

Before visiting the company lawyer, I wanted to have some jist of what can be done and how it can be done. So hopefully someone will help me through my questions!

Before getting into the questions, I first want to let you know of the conditions that revolve around this issue. I am a supervisor at an hotel being operated in New York metropolitan area. And I have an employee who has been out of work for almost 3 months on FMLA.

I'm aware of the FMLA coverage and that qualified candidates can be secured of their position up to 12 weeks in a year. Yet, given that it is a hotel and there do exist many hospitality regulations, I just needed to be sure of any wrongs that can occur before this employee is terminated.

This employee is a front desk agent. He is a full time agent working 40 hours a week and receiving all the benefits such as healthcare from the hotel. Daily shift is 8 hours, and the job rquires agents to stay stand all throughout the shift except lunch break of course. It has already been 12 weeks since he's gotten into the car accident, and we have been notified that he is able to work. The problem here is that he cannot stand up for the 8 hour period, and considering the nature of the work being done at front desk at our hotel, we cannot station a chair at the front desk for him.

In this case, are we as the hotel still required to secure his position? Some of my colleagues are stating that an alternative position has to be given where he can sit down and work. Yet, all the departments that bare an office environment requires the employee to be proficient with MS Suites and be a Korean speaker. Yet, he is neither proficient in any of the MS Suites such as Excel or Word. In fact, he have learned how to use email pretty recently. Also, he does not speak any Korean. So in reality, we cannot offer him a position anywhere else but at front desk.

Can MS Suite proficiency of multilinguality be a reason of denial in case we are required to provide him with an alternative position where he can be seated?

Your help will greatly be appreciated, and thank you in advance.

Best regards.

payroll deductions

bpugh9256 — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 18:55:55 GMT

can an employer hold money out of your check for missing deposit

Online employment companies... Action

Andrea_Thompson — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 17:31:37 GMT

I have been applying for jobs off and on since September of 2001, mostly via online. During the era of the .com boom, I used to receive a flood of responses to my resume, which at that time had entry-level accounting and retail background. After the .com trend began to decline, I noticed a stark difference in number of employers who offered job interviews. Since my most recent job search I've been conducting since 2006, I have applied to over 2,000 jobs online through [companie... and directly on company websites.

I think the job posting powerhouses post jobs that are not being actively pursued by the employers and are a source of advertising and expenses for the companies involved. A lot of the positions are filled by employee referrals or they are not actively using these online boards for their recruiting. These companies are providing false hope to the millions of people who are seeking employment and are not receiving the responses for the work they are putting into their job search.

The best response I've had has been with [name removed]. I have received several calls from this site, but I still think that a resume with sales representative, account management, and retail buying should receive a lot of activity. I personally have been unemployed since 2008 and should have had a larger response overall over the last 8 years of job hunting.

Suggested resolution details: $25,0000,000 from each online job board. Auditing of job postings to validate availability and more mangement of postings by employers and job boards.

Sup. request violated HIPAA Regs - Quit Job - Denied UnEmpl

ssrolle — Fri, 28 Aug 2009 02:50:24 GMT

Hello,

I am a Software Engineer and have been dealing with the loss of my job for some time and my gut is telling me something is not right about this. I'm not sure how to deal with my situation so any advice would be appreciated.

I was employed temp-to-hire position with a Reference Laboratory. During my time there starting from March10th 2008, I had discovered many technical security related issues which compromised patient data in many documented situations. I.e. patient data stolen. I notified my direct supervisor and was basically told to "go sit down and color" he eventually told me to stop working on the assignment he gave me. Needless to say the IT department was extremely stressed due to these discoveries; which I might mention were never reported to the authorities, even though HIPAA regulations state otherwise. There were many other violations but I won't get into that since it is not the point of my post.

My supervisor assigned me another project which was the development of a Master Patient Index or MPI. The idea is to clean, merge and purge patient records. In order to do this you must have algorithms in place that are able to accurately match duplicate records of a single patient. If the algorithms determine it is a good match, the records are matched and merged. While hospitals already have systems such as this in place it is an unusual concept in a lab environment. In addition, most hospitals use software or algorithms that are tried and true through extensive research, design and development. Ultimately it is an extremely complex undertaken and requires a team of experts due to the potential danger to an individual patient and the potential for mis-treatment and mis-diagnosis. The last thing a patient wants is to have a disease due to a bad patient match or even worst not treated properly.

Well getting back to my issue..... The week I was due to be hired permanently I had a conversation with my direct supervisor and he demanded that I create a MPI with the algorithms he supplied, which were completely incorrect and even under vigorous testing provided a high percentage of false positives. I provided him with the documentation on all accounts and he basically ignored it. My direct Supervisor had a degree as a Lab Technician and was very limited in his IT knowledge.

During our conversation I simply asked him, "Are you willing to let a single patient’s data be reported incorrectly?" His response to me was, "You don’t think this has already happen." While what he claims may be true, I am not willing to take that chance I do have integrity and standards and would never jeopardize an individual’s health. I told him, "I suppose this job is not for me" and walked out leaving everything behind on my desk because I was so upset.

After I had been gone for a month I received an email from a co-worker stating they wanted me to pick up my stuff. So I went and picked everything up in a single box which was delivered by a handcart to me in the parking lot. I never entered the building to retrieve my things. To my surprise every piece of documentation that I had gathered other than a network diagram I had created was in the box.

The documentation included port scans, log files from servers which included user names and passwords, IP addresses both internally and externally and many other documents which should have never been in that box.

Anyhow, I contacted unemployment in the state of NM and I am declined. This I find very disturbing I feel as though I am personally being punished for doing the right thing. My options were very limited either do the job or walk. I maintained my integrity and ethics and walked so now my family and I suffer because I was denied unemployment even though it was no fault of my own.

As a side note, these are the actions I had taken prior to quitting and after.

1. Myself and co-worker tried to express our concerns to the CIO but he did not want any parts of it and chose not to even entertain the idea that something was not quite right.

2. I researched and tested alternative solutions that would in fact work and they were poo-poo'd by my supervisor.

3. Provided documentation to why the algorithms supplied by my supervisor would not work. I was ignored and told this must be completed by the end of the year which was 6 months away because 50% of all the directors’ bonuses relied on it.

4. I have turned this over to HIPAA.

5. I voiced my concerns and was told don't say anything because [the company] does not need a scandal.

Any advice would be appreciated and thank you for taking the time to responds in advance.

Unjustly Terminated.?T

tone34 — Fri, 28 Aug 2009 17:41:37 GMT

here is the situation. i have been working for a company for 2 and a half years and have never been written up. then out of the blue my new area manager gives me 3 write ups and says we are terminating you for getting 3 write ups in one week. on the termination write up it specificaly states that the employee is being terminated after being given 2 prior notices ie write ups. i was never given 2 prior notices and even then the instances i was being written up for span a 2 to 3 week period of time. then to make matters worse she did this in public at a starbucks. very embarrasing. is this legal. can i make a case out of this?

Washington Unemployment Benfits Denial

Andrea_Thompson — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 17:43:37 GMT

I have been filing for unemployment from the state of Washington since 2007. I was recently under another emergency claim when I found a job with Wyndham Resorts as an Upgrade Sales Representative.

The position is a commission only job. The first two weeks of employment you are paid $500 per week and each week thereafter is commission based. I was under the impression that until I received my first paycheck from Wyndham, my unemployment benefits would continue to be paid.

I have transportation, rental and daycare costs that I can not afford without my benefits. I decided to quit the job because I would rather find a job with a salary. I reported on my claim online that I had accepted employment and said I received $1 in wages to bypass the system. The following week when I would normally expect a payment, I found that I was cut off from my benefits. I called to attempt to resolve the issue, but now there is a strong possiblity that I will be denied benefits because I quit the job. The adjuticator is not taking into consideration my inability to afford to work at a commission only based job. I have also not received a payment from Wyndham Resorts for the two days of training I received. I am now facing technical homelessness since I am living with my soon to be ex-husband and may miss out on an apartment that helps people during financial hardships. I do at least need my unemployment benefits to live there and I can not continue living with my "ex-husband" as he has already very generously allowed me to stay for the last year.

I would like to seek representation to attempt to reopen my claim.

Salaried with commissions

Gabrielle323 — Thu, 20 Aug 2009 00:05:33 GMT

I started working for a mortgage company on April 13th. My contract is for a base salary and commissions on volume of sales per month. I am suppose to be paid my commissions on the last day of the following month. So I am due for my April May and June commissions. How long can they legally withhold these commissions?

Salaried employee

mia12 — Sun, 16 Aug 2009 22:23:24 GMT

I have a business with salaried employees that "live" on the premises and I provide all their living expenses, that is, apt., utilities, etc., plus a small salary. They basically run the office and take care of the other employees and are considered mgrs. Are there minimum wage/hour issues, as they do not make minimum wage,(depending on how it is calculated). They have been mgrs for several yrs., are retirement age, and seldom leave the premises. That is my basic question, but there are other major issues that may need to be addressed in the future. Anyone have any thoughts?

Paying employees who opt out of health insurance?

NSHIN — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 18:23:16 GMT

I work for an employer who provides employer-paid health insurance. If an employee opts out of that coverage, is s/he due whatever premium the employer would have paid for that employee? This is for California, btw.

Thanks in advance for any help/advice.

Firing someone over their past history (California)

Digital Matrix — Thu, 13 Aug 2009 03:49:17 GMT

I was at work this week working for a client and during a walk through of their office I actually witnessed the president of the company fire on-the-spot a woman he just discovered was recently hired when he ran into her in the hallway. After the little embarrassing fiasco I asked him why did fired her so indiscriminately?

He told me what about a year ago before he stated his new company he was a vender for her previous employer. He told me that she thought he was trying to hit on her while he worked for them at a trade show, which he denied doing and her misperception caused him a lot of grief with his client at the time. So to avoid any problems from her behaving this way again he simply disposed of her the second he saw her.

I can understand his point of view as he was apparently very bitter about her accusations causing friction with his client. I would never want to have my company exposed to problems or even rumors of any type of unprofessional conduct. But I would have taken asked HR to terminate her gracefully. My question is can he fire here for her past behavior if he feels it’s going to cause problems? Is this legal?

Sharing personal cell phone numbers with clients

mdkphd — Wed, 12 Aug 2009 23:22:57 GMT

Does an employer have the right to distribute an employee's personal cell phone number without the employee's permission.

Recently, a director of a department gave a client the personal cell phone number of one of the employee's I manage, without the employee's permission, and without my knowledge.

Neither the person who's cell phone number was given out, nor I agree with this action, and am wondering if this is illegal? If so, what are the potential avenues of recourse?

Thanks for your time and input.