Now that the election is over and most of the Affordable Care Act (aka Obamacare) is likely to take effect, some employer will want to revisit the new obligations and requirements of the Act. On November 30, 2012, our firm is presenting a complimentary webinar titled "Health Care Reform: What Lays Ahead with the Affordable Care Act?
Early Employer Planning Can Avoid Interruptions and Payment Obligations On Election Day
National elections are approaching and some Texas employees may be entitled to paid time off to vote in that election. The Texas Election Code makes it a Class C misdemeanor for an employer to refuse to allow an employee to be absent from work on election day for purpose of attending the polls to vote.
Why Personnel Files Should Reflect Reality: Properly Characterizing Employee Wage Increases
I like to emphasize the importance that an employee’s personnel file accurately reflect the employee’s performance in reality. When an employer’s defense of a personnel action is based on an employee’s poor performance, fact finders expect that the poor performance to be documented in the employee’s file. Fact finders do not expect, without plausible explanation, to see satisfactory performance reviews
Paying Texas Employees Using Debit Cards
Some employers have experimented using debit card payroll systems to decrease their payroll processing and administration costs. Frequently, Texas employers ask whether they can pay their Texas employees using debit cards. The answer is "yes" but only with the employee consent.
Texas law provides that employees must be paid in one of four forms:
- In U.S. currency;
Archive for Webinar on Investigating Employee Complaints in the 21st Century Now Available
Yesterday I hosted a webinar on Investigating Employee Complaints in the 21st Century: Comprehensive Investigations of Complaints of Discrimination, Harassment and Misconduct. There was a great turnout and many good questions posed from the participants. If you missed the presentation, you can watch the archive here.
I am actively seeking suggestions for interesting human resource or
Plaintiff’s Repeated “I Don’t Know” in Depositions Are Claim Killers
A while back I took the plaintiff’s deposition in a sex discrimination and harassment case where the plaintiff’s primary answer to any question that called for facts that might undermine her claim was "I don’t know" or "I don’t recall." The deposition looked a lot like this one.
At a break, my client representative expressed a great deal
Carrots and Sticks: Ensuring You Have Buy-Out Rights When Employees Own Part of the Company
From time to time I’m approached by a small company that has given an employee partial ownership in the company. While I haven’t yet had one written on the back of a bar napkin, the agreements usually aren’t much more sophisticated than this (or formal either). By the time I’m consulted, like many once-good marriages, the employment relationship
A Lighthearted Take on Deposition Preparation
Every once in a while I write a post just for fun. One example was the post I wrote about religious reasonable accommodation and the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster. Today is another fun post I felt compelled to write to justify the hour I spent watching funny video’s this weekend –the first weekend without
Texas Law Prohibits Employers from Requiring Employees to Purchase Employer’s Goods
As I was driving home last night, NPR played a clip from the 1947 folk song "16 Tons." Its a catchy tune about 1940’s coal mining. The chorus of the song has the coal miner asking St. Peter to delay his death because he owes his soul to the company store. Employers used to provide "company stores"
Communicating Termination Decisions Requires Humanity
Last week there was a lot of coverage about Mitt Romney’s remarks on being able to terminate those who provide services to him. In viewing his remarks, I think the criticism of his comments comes, not so much from what he said, but how he said it. In a somewhat cavalier manner, Romney said he liked have the