by Kathy Neal

You’ve been verifying I-9s since the Immigration Reform and Control Act (IRCA) took effect in 1986. You know the difference between List A, B, and C documents, and you can fill out I-9s in your sleep. Imagine your surprise to receive a letter from the Office of Special Counsel for Immigration-Related Unfair Employment Practices (OSC) in the Civil Rights Division of the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) notifying you that you are being investigated for document abuse and discrimination in the employment eligibility verification process. What? Isn’t one of the purposes of Form I-9 to keep unauthorized aliens from being employed in the United States? Now you’re really confused!

Background
The antidiscrimination provision of the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA) prohibits four types of unlawful conduct: (1) national origin discrimination, (2) citizenship or immigration status discrimination, (3) unfair documentary practices during the Form I-9 process (document abuse), and (4) retaliation. The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) and the OSC share jurisdiction over national origin discrimination charges. The EEOC has jurisdiction over employers with 15 or more employees, while the OSC has jurisdiction over employers with more than three and fewer than 15 employees. Continue Reading »

On May 8, 2013, the U.S. House of Representatives passed HR 1406, the Working Families Flexibility Act, which would allow employers to offer compensatory time off in lieu of time-and-a-half cash wages for overtime. Employees would be allowed to “cash out” unused comp time within specified periods of time. While the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) supports the bill, it is currently opposed by both unions and the majority of congressional Democrats, which means it will face a much tougher audience in the Democrat-controlled Senate.

Comp time under the Working Families Flexibility Act
The bill would amend the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) to let private-sector employers offer compensatory paid time off to hourly employees who work more than 40 hours per week in lieu of cash wages at 1 ½ times their regular rate of pay. The comp time would be offered at a rate of 1 ½ hours per hour of overtime worked, and both the worker and the employer would need to agree in writing to the comp time arrangement. To be eligible for the comp time, an employee would have to have worked a minimum of 1,000 hours within the last 12 months. Employees could accrue up to 160 hours of comp time a year.

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Recently, BLR surveyed 700 HR professionals on the training and development practices at their organizations. The survey asked about types of training conducted, frequency of training, training methods, and types of training products and services used.

Here are some of the findings of the survey: Continue Reading »

by Dinita L. James

Reports out of the nation’s capital indicate the time finally may be right for comprehensive immigration reform. The word “comprehensive” encompasses a lot of issues, including border security and what some call a “pathway to citizenship” and others call “amnesty.”

Everyone describing the scope of comprehensive immigration reform seems to include in their plans a national mandatory system of employment verification. Arizona employers have been subject to a state law that mandates use of the federal E-Verify system for five years now. The Legal Arizona Workers Act (LAWA), which took effect on January 1, 2008, requires every business in the state to verify the legal status of new employees against the federal E-Verify database.

Because Arizona was the first state in the nation to adopt such a law, pundits and policymakers are looking to learn from our experience as Congress considers expanding employment verification nationwide. Continue Reading »

We’re deep into spring, the time when cubicle-bound employees may be planning their escape and vying for prime spots on the time-off calendar. Or maybe they’re so busy with the daily grind that they don’t even dream of walks on the beach or majestic mountain views.

When it comes to time off, HR professionals deal with two kinds of problems: the employees who take their time off as soon as they earn it and are always looking for ways to wheedle an extra day whenever possible and the workers who haven’t taken a vacation in years and have no plans to do so.

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Today’s workplace is facing a classic good news-bad news scenario. It’s good news that hiring shows signs of picking up. But if recent surveys are any indication, that good news hasn’t made much of a dent in the bad news – that more workers than ever are experiencing rising stress levels.

The 2013 Work Stress Survey, conducted on behalf of Everest College and released in April, found that 83 percent of those surveyed are stressed by at least one thing at work. That’s up 10 percentage points from the same survey released in 2012.

Major stressors
The survey indicates that workers experiencing stress aren’t sweating the small stuff. Instead, they’re worried about crucial aspects of their work lives, including: Continue Reading »

by Amanda Shelby

The U.S. Department of Labor’s (DOL) recently issued Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) regulations became effective on March 8. Although the new regulations don’t radically change the landscape of the FMLA, they do contain some significant modifications. What do you need to know to ensure that your policies and practices are still in compliance? 

Major changes
The new FMLA regulations revise several aspects of the law, ranging from required posters and recommended forms to the calculation of hours of service and available leave for airline flight crews. The regulatory changes that will affect most employers include modifications to the calculation of intermittent FMLA leave, the expansion of coverage for family members of certain military personnel and veterans, and revisions to the DOL’s FMLA poster and notification and certification forms. Continue Reading »

No one wants to get burned by hiring a bad apple, so it’s common for employers to conduct background checks to lessen the chance of bringing a dishonest employee into the workplace. But as hazardous as it is to have shady employees, it also can be dangerous to step out of line when checking people out. A background checking tool making headlines recently comes in the form of databases filled with names and information on employees who have been accused of stealing from their employers. The databases are mostly used in the retail world. 

The New York Times recently detailed how employers are using databases from companies including First Advantage Corporation, HireRight, and GIS. The article points out that the databases are now considered legal, but attorneys and federal regulators are taking a close look to see if they may be out of compliance with the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA).

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by Timothy P. Brechtel and Ricardo X. Carlo

As if you didn’t have enough to worry about as healthcare reform heads toward full implementation in 2014, the new whistleblower protection provisions of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) may present a trap for unsuspecting employers looking to cut costs by tweaking their workforces. Under ACA Section 1558, an employer cannot retaliate against any potential, current, or former employee for engaging in a “protected” activity, including exercising his rights under the ACA. Additionally, actions such as reducing hours or laying off employees, if taken in response to penalties imposed under the Act’s “play or pay” rules, could be deemed retaliation and result in serious employer liability. 

A primer on ACA whistleblower protection
On February 27, the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) issued an interim final regulation and a request for comments regarding procedures governing whistleblower complaints. Under the ACA, the term “protected activity” encompasses a wide range of activities―for example, reporting a violation of the Act, assisting or participating in an investigation of such a violation, or receiving a federal subsidy or tax credit to purchase insurance from a health exchange. Specific examples of protected activities in which employees might engage include obtaining subsidized exchange-based health insurance coverage that triggers a “play or pay” penalty or objecting to an employer’s failure to provide free preventive services through its health plan. Continue Reading »

by Reggie Gay

Say you have a nonexempt salaried employee who will be working an extra six hours each week for additional training for her position. The extra hours will result in overtime hours each week. However, the employee is requesting comp time in lieu of overtime pay. Is it OK to let her track the hours she works (including the training time) and ask her to sign a form indicating her desire to waive overtime pay in lieu of comp time? If so, should the comp time be given to her at time and a half? 

Comp time, training time, and overtime

One of the most misunderstood and misapplied rules of the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) deals with overtime and comp time. Often, employees would rather receive comp time than overtime pay. In fact, they specifically ask for it. Further, questions frequently arise about whether an employer is responsible for an employee’s training time. Continue Reading »