February 2017

The Washington State Department of Labor and Industries is hoping all employers will give its two new free phone apps a try: the Good Observation, Near-Miss and Accident Reporting App and the SafeMe App. We took them for a spin and give them both two-thumbs up! Good Observation, Near-Miss and Accident Reporting App The Good Read more

Retailers, rejoice: the North Dakota House of Representatives has passed a bill repealing the state’s “blue law” prohibiting businesses from operating on Sunday mornings. North Dakota’s Sunday Closing Law makes it a class B misdemeanor to “conduct business or labor for profit” or to “operate a place of business open to the public” on Sundays Read more

The ADEA & Disparate Impact The Age Discrimination in Employment Act (ADEA) prohibits employment discrimination against persons over the age of forty. One way an employee can demonstrate age discrimination is by showing that a specific employer policy or practice has a “disparate impact” on members of the protected class. For example, a particular hiring Read more

As we reported last week, citizens of Arizona city Flagstaff will get the chance in 2018 to decide whether to eliminate the “escalator” clause mandating that the municipal minimum wage remain $2.00 above state levels. It turns out, however, that the state minimum wage will undergo examination even sooner—and not by voters, but by the Read more

States across the nation continue the sick leave momentum. Each year, more states and municipalities are requiring employers to provide employees with sick leave time. Michigan might be the latest state to pass such legislation. Since 2014, several Michigan proponents have tried to generate enough signatures to send a paid sick time proposal to the Read more

Rounding Practices Frequently, employers’ timekeeping practices include “rounding policies” and “grace periods”. These policies permit employees’ clock-in time to be adjusted around start and stopping work times for administrative purposes. If an employer has a quarter-hour “rounding policy,” employee time is rounded to the nearest quarter hour.  Therefore, an employee who clocks in at 8:07 Read more

After months of conflict, citizens of Flagstaff finally have an answer as to whether the city’s controversial minimum wage ordinance will live or die…that answer being “not yet, but try again later.” In a widely-attended Valentine’s Day session, the Flagstaff City Council elected not to hold a special election allowing citizens to vote on amendments Read more

On February 1, 2017, the state of South Dakota introduced Senate Bill 150, which would establish certain provisions regarding paid maternity leave. If passed, the law would permit an employee who has worked an initial one year period as a full time employee for the same employer to take four weeks of paid parental leave. Read more