07/08/2010
Until now, it wasn’t clear whether employers could ask employees returning from military service to waive their re-employment rights under USERRA. Now a ruling from the federal 6th Circuit Court of Appeals has offered guidance for employers that want to provide severance payments in lieu of re-employment.
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06/09/2010
Q. One of our full-time employees has just informed us that he will be on two weeks of National Guard duty soon. He will be absent from work to attend an annual encampment in a reserve branch of the armed forces. What are our legal obligations concerning pay to this employee?
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05/14/2010
Q. Can we refuse to hire a qualified applicant who has told us her National Guard duty conflicts with some of the weekends she would be required to work? Employees in this job bid for rotating scheduled weekends under a union contract seniority system. The applicant’s schedule for Guard duty is not flexible.
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04/19/2010
The Uniformed Services Employment and Reemployment Rights Act provides job protection for employees who serve in the military and prohibits retaliation against anyone—including co-workers—who participates in an investigation or proceeding to enforce the law. But petty aggravations aren’t retaliatory.
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04/15/2010
Q. We provide unpaid leave to employees who are called up to serve in the armed forces, in accordance with the terms and conditions the Uniformed Services Employment and Reemployment Rights Act (USERRA). May we require employees to concurrently exhaust any earned but unused vacation that they may have accumulated?
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03/24/2010
Q. We have an employee who will soon go on temporary military duty and be gone for several weeks. Do we have to pay him at all during his absence, or does he receive military pay?
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03/12/2010
Q. Last month we reinstated an employee who was on military leave for six months. It’s the same position, with the same pay he received before he went on military leave. Effective Jan. 1, 2010, all employees in his department received a 4% pay raise in recognition for their hard work in 2009. Does the law require us to pay him at this increased rate?
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03/11/2010
Q. We have an employee who will soon go on temporary military duty soon and be gone for several weeks. Do we have to pay him at all during his absence, or does he receive military pay?
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02/09/2010
Employees who are called to active military service have certain job protections, including the right to return to their old or similar jobs. But those rights have limits. The law doesn’t require reinstating a veteran to her old job at the same facility where she worked before if the employer no longer has jobs there.
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02/07/2010
HR Law 101: Under the Consolidated Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act (COBRA) of 1985, employers are required to continue offering health insurance benefits to employees and their covered dependents for a specified period after they leave the organization ...
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01/05/2010
Our friends at the law firm of Fisher & Phillips LLP recently published this entertaining look at the employment law year that was. From A (the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act) to Z (zealously), 2009 was a busy year for those who track employment law trends.
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01/04/2010
Employees returning from military service are entitled to come back to their old jobs, and they have other limited job protections, too. But those protections don’t mean employers can never discipline or demote employees who have been serving in the armed forces. Just make sure you’re doing so for legitimate business reasons, such as documented poor performance.
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12/28/2009
The U.S. Department of Justice says it has begun increasing its enforcement efforts on employers that it suspects discriminated against military members returning to the private-sector workforce. In the first six months of 2009, the department filed 14 lawsuits based on violations of USERRA.
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11/03/2009
You wouldn’t think a Pentagon budget bill would affect HR, but the 2010 Department of Defense appropriations law does—by expanding the military family leave amendments to the FMLA that were enacted last year. The legislation provided two new kinds of leave for employees with close relatives serving on active duty in the armed forces:
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10/13/2009
A new law, the Veterans’ Benefit Improvement Act, makes it absolutely critical for you to retain records of how you handled any hiring process involving military veterans. Those covered by USERRA now can sue at any time, no matter how long ago an employer allegedly violated their rights. Fortunately, the 7th Circuit has ruled that the law isn’t retroactive.
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