Overlawyered: Chronicling The High Cost Of Our Legal System

Posts Tagged ‘workplace’

Adventures in employment agreements

The town of Stratford, Connecticut entered an employment agreement with its director of human resources, stating that his employment would be entirely at-will and further providing:

Based upon the annual performance evaluation, and at the [m]ayor’s sole discretion and recommendation, the base salary may be increased on July 1 of each fiscal year, subject to the approval of the [council], which by Charter fixes the salaries of all mayoral appointees.

Subsequently, the town council voted to reduce the manager’s salary, and the dispute went to litigation. Both a trial court and a Connecticut appeals court agreed with the manager’s argument that even though the document prescribed an at-will relationship, by specifying that the base salary “may be increased” it was implicitly promising that it would never be decreased. [Daniel Schwartz; Adams on Contract Drafting]

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She came to stay: nanny won’t leave couple’s home

Upland, Calif.: “A California family is stumped about what to do with a live-in nanny they say refuses to work, refuses to be fired and refuses to leave. In fact, Marcella Bracamonte claims that the nanny, Diane Stretton, has threatened to sue the family for wrongful firing and elder abuse.” Stretton’s hiring agreement with the Bracamontes entitles her to room and board as part of her compensation, but she now indicates that she is suffering a disability and stays mostly in her room, the couple says. After the dispute arose the Bracamontes discovered that Stretton is on the state vexatious-litigants list and has been involved in at least 36 lawsuits; police say because Stretton is in residence it is a civil matter, but a judge threw out the couple’s initial eviction attempt, saying they had not filled out a quit notice correctly. [ABC News, auto-plays video ad; CBS Los Angeles] In September of last year, whether coincidentally or not, California Gov. Jerry Brown signed into law the so-called California Domestic Workers’ Bill of Rights, affording domestic workers substantially more legal leverage in disputes with their employers. [SCPR] (& Scott Greenfield, with commenters)

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Connecticut politicos to employers: please hold our coat for 8 years while we govern

“It is a truism that laws tend to be arranged for the benefit of the political class.” Even so, would you expect Connecticut law to provide that private employers must hold open the jobs of full-time elected officials for as much as eight years in case they decide to return? My new blog post at Cato has details.

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NLRB: employer policy may not prohibit negativity and gossip

In an April decision, the National Labor Relations Board found largely unlawful a hospital’s employee handbook policy as follows:

…11. We will not make negative comments about our fellow team members and we will take every opportunity to speak well of each other.

16. We will represent [the hospital] in the community in a positive and professional manner in every opportunity.

21. We will not engage in or listen to negativity or gossip. We will recognize that listening without acting to stop it is the same as participating.

The reason? Under NLRB doctrine, in both non-union and union workplaces, negative discussion of managers and other co-workers could count as “protected activities” linked to the potential for concerted labor action.

[Jon Hyman, Ohio Employer’s Law Blog, on the April case of Hills & Dales General Hospital (PDF)]

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Speaking of European labor-law rigidity…

The Wall Street Journal last month (paywalled, no link) reported on how the long-moribund British auto industry now has a striking success, BMW’s Mini plant in Oxford, along with a hopeful sign for the future, Tata Motors Ltd.’s plans to invest $2.5 billion in its Jaguar plant in Solihull:

Workplace flexibility is a big factor behind the success of the U.K.’s auto industry, experts say. The Mini plant operates under the “working time account” model, which lets employees build up extra working hours that they can then draw on in downtime. …

“This is impossible in the rest of Europe on any relevant scale because of local legislation that protects workers’ rights and pay,” said John Leech, head of the U.K. automotive section at consultancy KPMG.

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Mandates for paid sick leave

Labor and left-wing advocates are staging a concerted push for this measure, which opponents say is particularly burdensome to small business. “Supporters cite their success in gaining the enactment of paid sick day laws in Connecticut and six U.S. cities — the District of Columbia, Jersey City, N.J., New York City, Portland, Ore., San Francisco and Seattle–as proof that the campaign is gaining momentum.” Opponents are fighting back with, among other steps, legislation passed in at least ten states specifying that municipal home rule does not include the authority to enact ordinances of this sort. [Rhonda Smith, Bloomberg BNA]

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Taking FMLA leave — while working another job

If a worker has been taking leave under the Family and Medical Leave Act for “extreme fatigue” or “mental distress” and you as an employer discover that they’re working another job, you might think it’s okay to dismiss them just for the lack of candor. But don’t assume that! Under the current state of the law, if you’ve informed employees expressly that you’ve got a policy against working at other jobs and if you’ve “uniformly applied” that policy, that is to say, applied it rigidly in the past whatever the equities of the particular situation, then maybe you’ll be in the clear. Maybe. [Christopher Engler, Connecticut Employment Law Blog]

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Labor and employment roundup

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Labor and employment roundup

  • Minimum wage laws are sentimental legislation with all-too-real effects [Jeffrey Dorfman] “Our Business’s Response to California $2 Minimum Wage Increase” [Coyote, with more on a union angle on minimum wage laws] Some experience from Europe [Steve Hanke, more, Cato overview of minimum wage debate]
  • Connecticut fires state labor department employee who gamed system to get benefits for friend, then reinstates after grievance [Raising Hale] Oldie but goodie: union contract in Bay City, Mich. gave teachers five strikes to show up work drunk before being fired [Mackinac Center two years back]
  • Background of Harris v. Quinn, now before SCOTUS: Blagojevich and Quinn favors for SEIU [George Leef, Forbes, earlier here, etc.]
  • If you decline to hire applicants who’ve sued previous employers, you may face liability over that [Jon Hyman]
  • More on class action seeking pay for volunteer Yelp reviewers [LNL, earlier]
  • “Intriguingly, returns to skills are systematically lower in countries with higher union density, stricter employment protection, and larger public-sector shares.” [Eric Hanushek et al, NBER via Cowen]
  • “L.A. Sheriff’s Department Admits Hiring 80 Problem Officers; May Not Be Able to Fire Them” [Paul Detrick, Reason]

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Labor and employment roundup

  • Labor Department wants to shut down consignors-as-volunteers consignment-sale business plan [Bloomberg BusinessWeek, Sean Higgins/Examiner]
  • Operating Engineers Local 17: “Legality of union violence at heart of court case” [Buffalo News]
  • Alternative to “Ban the Box”: revisit extent to which old convictions stay on the books [Eli Lehrer; Baltimore Sun on municipal proposal]
  • Human capital investment by women has narrowed gender pay gap, desire for time flexibility crucial in explaining what remains [Tyler Cowen on Claudia Goldin paper]
  • Carl Horowitz on UAW push to organize VW in Chattanooga [Capital Research Center]
  • Seyfarth Shaw’s 10th annual Workplace Class Action Litigation Report [Seyfarth, Daniel Fisher]
  • Sixth Circuit: transfer can count as adverse action even when employee had previously requested it [Jon Hyman]

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