Mark your calendar and plan to join us for the July 16th HR Steps to Success program. The first program in our series will tackle the Fundamentals of Employee Discipline and discuss the ins and outs of properly disciplining employees. The presentation will cover the following topics:

After months of anticipation and many rumors about when the U.S. Department of Labor would release new proposed rules on which employees are eligible for overtime pay, the day has finally arrived. After a speech on the topic by President Obama the night before, the DOL publically announced on the morning of June 30th its proposed regulations, thereby starting the process necessary for the regulations to take effect. HR pros need to understand these new proposed regulations, but also the timeline they will be on before they can have the force of law.

More than a year ago we wrote about the intersection of state laws permitting certain medicinal and recreational use of marijuana and employers’ lawful ability to enforce policies prohibiting drug use.  (A Hazy Area of the Law:  The Impact of Medicinal and Recreational Marijuana Laws on Employers.)  At that time, we noted that a Colorado Court of Appeals’ ruling strengthened the position that an employer can lawfully terminate an employee for using medicinal marijuana in violation of its drug policies, even if the employee was not impaired at work and did not use marijuana while at the worksite or during work hours.  The Colorado Supreme Court recently confirmed that proposition, giving employers a big sigh of relief.

National_Labor_Relations_Board_logo_-_colorEarlier this year, on March 18, 2015, NLRB General Counsel Richard F. Griffin, Jr. issued a report covering recent cases on employee handbook rules that encroached on employees’ Section 7 rights under the National Labor Relations Act.  Griffin’s report (GC Memo 15-04) stated that the vast majority of handbook violations are due to employers’ failure to comply with the first prong of the Lutheran Heritage test.  The report also provides timely guidance to employers in light of a recent NLRB decision against a fast-food restaurant’s finding Section 7 violations in its employee handbook.

Last week the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) won  what has become known as the “headscarf case” before the U.S. Supreme Court. The case, EEOC v. Abercrombie & Fitch, deals with provisions of Title VII that make it illegal for an employer to refuse to hire a job applicant just to avoid accommodating a religious practice. The decision expands Title VII liability to instances where a job applicant has not informed the employer of a need for an accommodation―a novel concept to many employers.

California employers have long been aware that California state law prohibits inclusion of non-compete clauses in standard employment agreements.  But, in a first of its kind case, a divided federal appeals court panel has interpreted California Business and Professions Code Section 16600 to also bar “no-employment” contract terms that prevent a former employee from working for the former employer or any entity in contract with the former employer.  The court held that this type of provision limits an employee’s ability to work in contravention of the terms of Section 16600.

Protecting alleged “whistleblowers” has become a greater and greater priority of government agencies in recent years.  When agencies believe employers are taking actions that stifle the “whistleblowing” of employees, they are quick to take strong action.  For the first time, an agency that gets plenty of attention from companies has joined in this effort.

Our very own HR Law Matters contributor Jim McCabe has written an insightful analysis on whether employers can prohibit employees from secretly recording conversations in the workplace.  The article was published yesterday on Law 360 and can be viewed here.

Online forums where anyone can post comments, reviews, or opinions about a company are growing in popularity.  As a result, employers are finding postings by former employees who may have left on “bad” terms and now share their unhappy feelings with the world.  Often such postings – while annoying and potentially embarrassing – are well within an employee’s rights.  Companies need to remember that the former employee will likely soon grow tired of the cyber smear campaign, and such posts do not often cause meaningful damages (particularly the type that can be proven in court).  Additionally, where such posts are on sites like Twitter or Facebook, the daily volume of postings means that any bothersome posts get moved down the feed pretty quickly.  Most of the time the employer’s best bet is to follow the advice of Disney’s “Frozen” and just “Let it Go.”