Missouri Shared Work Program

A Unique Opportunity to Reduce Employee Hours While Still Qualifying Them for Unemployment

In a struggling economy, employers have to make difficult decisions pertaining to their businesses and employees. Faced with “hopefully” temporary losses in business, many employers are forced to terminate employees losing their experience and knowledge. On the other hand, if the employer elects to reduce hours, the employees receive lesser pay and are ineligible to collect unemployment benefits.

Fortunately, employers do have a unique alternative under the Missouri Employment Security Law whereby they can retain their hourly workforce and reduce hours while at the same time allowing their employees to receive a proportional supplement of unemployment benefits. This article applies only to such programs that involve hourly-paid employees.

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10 Ways for Companies to Stay Union-Free

Your company has the opportunity to create a culture now that encourages informed, engaged, and productive workers that have little incentive to organize.

Create your own competitive advantage in your industry by taking the actions below so the union walks away from your workforce and shows up at a competitor’s door instead. Wage your election campaign now by thinking and acting proactively!

1. Competitive Wages & Benefits—Outside & Inside

Companies should evaluate wages of similarly situated employees of other companies to determine if their workers are being paid a competitive wage. Similarly, companies should analyze their internal compensation system (salary/wage ranges and rates) to determine if compensation is set for “position” rather than individual and whether a uniform approach is used for length of service and experience. If there are disparities that cannot be justified, they should be evaluated.

2. Communication with Employees—What are the Wants?

Companies should allow employees to communicate with management regarding complaints and concerns. Methods of communication include having open door policies when appropriate, surveys, suggestion boxes, bulletin boards, job orientation, forms which communicate to the employee various hidden employee benefits, and company events such as picnics and holiday parties. Continue reading »

Department of Labor Exempt Regulations—What 2004 Favorable Changes Are You Still Not Using?

The Fair Labor Standards Act was passed in response to the Great Depression. An important piece of New Deal legislation, the Act was concerned primarily with providing a minimum subsistence wage and protection against oppressive working hours. Congress passed overtime legislation to advance three goals: a shorter work week, compensation for overworked employees, and work spreading (sharing). The white collar exemptions essentially served as a line drawing tool between those workers in need of statutory protection and those whose skills, pay and position offered them sufficient bargaining power to protect themselves.

In the agrarian and manufacturing-oriented economy of the 1930’s and 1940’s, white collar workers had clearly defined decision-making responsibilities, were closer to management and were paid better than today. In such an economy, white collar workers were middle class in income, outlook, attitude and life.

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Are All IT Jobs Exempt From Overtime Requirements Under the Fair Labor Standards Act?

Most companies are under a common perception that all jobs involving computers are complex, require exceptional expertise and are therefore exempt from the requirement of overtime pay under the Fair Labor Standards Act. Legally, this is not true. As a preventive measure, companies should audit their workforce to make sure that their information technology workers are properly classified. Failure to do so could cause companies to lose their exemption from paying overtime for all misclassified employees, payment of two to three years of back pay and the payment of double damages.

There are three possible applicable exemptions available to avoid overtime pay for information technology jobs. They are: (1) the computer related exemption under 29 CFR Section 541.400; (2) the administrative exemption under 29 CFR Section 541.200; and (3) the executive exemption under 29 CFR Section 641.100. This article will focus only on the computer related exemption.

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Three Top Reasons Why Employees Sue

Employment law does not address every imagined wrong, inequality, meritless promotion, mean act or omission that occurs in the workplace. The employment at will doctrine attempts to strike a balance—admittedly falling more adversely on employees. In many instances, a workplace can be like a sandbox/jungle, with no seemingly credible or impartial mediator overseeing an employee’s livelihood and the family’s survival. The employee consequently feels “wronged”.

When an employee approaches a lawyer to remedy that workplace “wrong”, the lawyer is often forced to advise the anguished employee that he or she attended law school, not justice school. Nonetheless, a lawyer’s duty to that complaining client is to look for certain acts, suspect classifications and/or factual patterns that evidence illegal aniums or unlawful motive. Accordingly, companies should plan for the worst, and attempt to avoid the more common minefields with sound policies and training.

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Mandatory Employment Arbitration Agreements-Employers May Not Achieve an Overall Cost Savings

Employment litigation continues to explode, fueled by the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1991, the Americans with Disabilities Act, the Age Discrimination in Employment Act, the Family and Medical Leave Act and increased sensitivity to sexual harassment. The number of employment discrimination claims increased by 2200 percent in the twenty-five years from 1969 to 1994, and now account for twenty to twenty-five percent of the federal court docket. Arbitration became an attractive alternative to litigation when a string of United States Supreme Court Cases were handed down in 1991. By 1997, the United States General Accounting Office found that nineteen percent of employers were using arbitration for employment disputes.

Mandatory employment arbitration agreements are entered prior to a dispute via a written contract. Arbitration clauses are commonly found in employment applications, employment manuals, or stand alone agreements. Such clauses require employees to submit any employment dispute to one or more impartial arbitrators for final and binding arbitration. Employment arbitration differs from other commercial arbitration proceedings; a mandatory employment arbitration clause must not remove remedies that an employee would otherwise have if the employee pursued the matter in civil litigation. Those remedies include the recovery of litigation expenses, including expert witness fees, attorneys’ fees, compensatory damages and punitive damages. This unique requirement for employment arbitration clauses is sometimes referred to as the “Remedy Rule.”

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Prompt Remedial Action Shields Companies From Liability From Sexual Harassment Allegations Lodged Against Co-Workers

This article addresses the legal standards of evaluating non-supervisory co-worker sexual harassment in the workplace. A “to do” list is provided below of the actions a Company should take to shield itself from liability.

To establish a case of sexual harassment by non-supervisory co-workers based on a hostile work environment, a plaintiff “must establish all of the following; 1) membership in a protected group, 2) the occurrence of unwelcome harassment, 3) a causal nexus between the harassment and her membership in the protected group, 4) the harassment affected a term condition, or privilege of employment, and 5) the employer knew or should have known of the harassment and failed to take prompt remedial actions.” Jacob-Mua v. Veneman, 289 F.3d 517, 520 (8th Cir. 2002).

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Beware—Proceed Cautiously—What the Missouri Employer Should Know About the Service Letter Statute and Defamation

Purpose of Statute

Missouri law protects the right of a discharged employee to request and receive an accurate service letter from his or her former employer. Section 290.140 of the Revised Statutes of Missouri was enacted to deter employers from damaging the employability of former employees by furnishing false or misleading information as to their service or false reasons for their discharge. Ryburn v. General Heating & Cooling, Co., 887 S.W.2d 604 (Mo. App. 1994).

Eligibility of Employee for Service Letter

If an individual is employed for at least ninety days by an employer with at least seven employees, he has the right, within one year from the date of discharge, to request a service letter from the former employer. R.S. Mo. § 290.140.1. The request must be made in writing and sent to the superintendent, manager, or registered agent (the “Agent”) of the former employer via certified mail, and must specifically reference Section 290.140 R.S. Mo.

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Two Bites at the Apple for Employees: Mandatory Arbitration Agreements

On January 15, 2002, the Supreme Court struck a blow to the strong federal policy favoring arbitration. It held that mandatory arbitration agreements do not foreclose or trump the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission‘s absolute right to seek victim specific relief (back pay, reinstatement, and punitive damages) on behalf of an employee in federal court.

Approximately ten percent of all employees sign mandatory arbitration agreements, which require them to bring all on-the-job disputes to binding arbitration and give up their right to sue in court. These types of agreements are increasingly more popular, and every day it seems a major employer announces that it is requiring employees to sign such agreements. Mandatory arbitration gives many benefits to employers including a reduction of overall litigation costs and settlement amounts. Employers also increasingly look to arbitration as a way of ensuring finality. However, the Supreme Court firmly rejected the notion that arbitration will solve all employment ills.

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