Articles and Blogs

The Internal Revenue Service (“IRS”) is warning consumers about a telephone scam that targets taxpayers, and specifically immigrants, throughout the country.  During the scam phone call, victims are threatened with arrest, deportation or suspension of a business or driver’s license if they do not promptly pay money allegedly owed to the IRS through a... READ MORE

“I want to be evaluated by a different hiring manager.” An African American submitted his résumé for a project manager position through a third-party recruiting firm.  He was subsequently contacted by the recruiting firm to discuss his candidacy and to complete a required assessment for the application process. However, by his own admission, he... READ MORE

E-Verify Is Down, but I-9s Are Up Employers who attempted to access E-Verify during the week of October 2 were stopped by the following error message: “E-Verify is currently unavailable due to a government shutdown.”  This error message raised several questions for employers, specifically whether Form I-9 requirements were suspended as well.  This concern... READ MORE

DOL Extends Minimum Wage and Overtime Protections to Home Care Workers Last week, the Department of Labor’s (“DOL”) Wage and Hour Division released a new rule extending minimum wage and overtime protections under the Fair Labor Standards Act (“FLSA”) to home care workers employed by third-party employers.  The new rule, which is not scheduled to... READ MORE

EEOC and NLRB Are Idle With the failure of Congress last night to fund the federal government, several of the agencies responsible for the investigation and enforcement of federal labor and employment laws have gone idle. Except for life threatening emergencies, property preservation and actions to accept filings to avoid statutes of limitations, most other... READ MORE

State Attorneys General Criticize EEOC Guidance on Criminal Background Checks Ever since the EEOC issued its “updated” Enforcement Guidance on the use of criminal background checks in April 2012, employers have struggled to understand exactly what could be asked and used in screening candidates for employment.  (See our article “Arrest and Conviction Records –... READ MORE

HIPAA Violation Was a Pretext A hospital employee’s violation of patient privacy as protected by HIPAA is a serious matter.  An intentional violation can and should lead to discipline up to and including discharge.  But a case that was decided by the NLRB is an object lesson for health care employers on what is and... READ MORE

When EEOC’s Statistics Are Unreliable – Case Fails For many employers, conducting a criminal history or credit record check on a potential employee is a rational and legitimate component of a reasonable hiring process.  This is how a federal district court judge started his opinion that went on to rake the EEOC over the coals for... READ MORE

Sports Analogy Can Have Multiple Meanings In sports, a coach will sometimes tell a player to just “walk it off” or “push through” the pain when a minor injury happens in a game or in practice.  One Florida insurance company found out that the world of sports and the world of employment are not... READ MORE

Two Courts Deny Rehearing – NLRB Exceeded Its Jurisdiction The battle over the NLRB’s Employee Rights Poster seems to be coming to an end.  The poster that the NLRB intended to be posted by private employers to inform their employees of their rights to join unions came under legal challenge and subsequent delays almost... READ MORE