When did you last update your employee handbook? With the end of the year nearing, now is a good time. Your policies should provide clear guidelines to your workforce about what you expect of them. Policies should also be a guide to HR regarding complaint procedures, discharge procedures, and even investigations if those are a
Like almost every federal agency, things have certainly changed at the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) in the last 10 months. One of those significant changes has been the departure from investigation of claims asserting the “disparate impact” theory. A plaintiff in a disparate impact case, generally speaking, must show that a seemingly neutral policy
For those thinking that classifying workers as independent contractors is a cheaper way of doing business, beware. A California court just ordered a home healthcare business to pay $10 million in restitution and civil penalties for misclassifying its home care workers as independent contractors. The judgment in the case states that the company already was
Because our lawmakers were unable to resolve their differences over the federal budget, the United States federal government shutdown on October 1, 2025, and continues to be shutdown. As a result, approximately 750,000 employees are on unpaid leave, and the shutdown has created much uncertainly for various federal agencies, including the Occupational Safety and Health
Employee activity on social media is a hot topic. The Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals recently addressed a case in which a university employee was denied opportunities following a Twitter tirade. The court affirmed that the university did not discriminate against the employee, did not violate the First Amendment, and upheld the university’s actions. This
On September 19, 2025, President Donald Trump issued a proclamation regarding the use of H-1B nonimmigrant visas. That same day, the Department of Labor announced Project Firewall, an H-1B enforcement initiative. Below, we summarize these developments and how they may affect your business.
An H1-B visa is an employer-sponsored visa for foreign professionals.
“I’m speaking my mind because I have a right to free speech.” We’ve all heard that haven’t we? In the words of Lee Corso: “Not so fast, my friend.” The First Amendment gives protection from governmental action. So, in most circumstances, federal, state, and local government employers (i.e., public employers) cannot take action against employees
Can you have noncompetes with employees or not? For a long time, state law governed the enforceability of noncompetes and then in April 2024, the Biden administration’s Federal Trade Commission voted to ban noncompete agreements almost entirely. The rule faced immediate legal challenges, and employers were left scrambling to change agreements or abandon them entirely.
You want a safe workplace and have adopted a Drug Free Workplace policy. You may even have government contracts that require you to drug test your employees. How does the brave new world of legalized marijuana, medical marijuana, and CBD products fit in? The answer, like many legal questions, depends. However, in Flannery v. Peco
Are home health and personal care workers eligible for overtime? That is a more complicated question than it first appears. In fact, it could be about to change again as certain providers of home health and personal care workers face a major shift as the U.S. Department of Labor’s (DOL) Wage and Hour Division (WHD)