Lawsuits are expensive... and they only ever get more costly as time goes on. To reduce delays, state governments have searched for ways to fairly apportion damages for certain types of accidents without having injured parties resort to filing lawsuits for some time. Workers' Compensation is one example of a system that states have used to avoid and prevent lawsuits in the specific field of workplace injuries by eliminating any requirement for fault or negligence.
Workers compensation systems exist to take workplace injuries out of the courtroom and resolve those claims in a more cost effective way without worrying about fault. Many employers purchase their workers compensation policies simply as a matter of necessity. But these policies cover more than just the statutory workers compensation scheme.
Retirement plans are an excellent way for employers to attract and retain key employees by offering non-salary compensation. Most employers in the modern era offer some form of 401(k) or other retirement offering to their employees. These plans, though, come with many risks and regulations that employers need to pay attention to, or they could wind up costing themselves big money.
On April 1, 2019, the Department of Labor proposed a new regulation, and it wasn’t an April Fool’s joke. The new regulation would seek to update the Department’s sixty year old test for determining joint employer relationships under the Fair Labor Standards Act. It is worth noting that this is different from the long running dispute over the joint employer test decided by the National Labor Relations Board as a part of its 2013 Browning-Ferris decision. This new rule would apply to allegations that employers had failed to pay their workers legally obligated wages under the Fair Labor Standards Act. Joint employers would be jointly and severely liable for any ordered back pay.
The Fair Labor Standards Act sets national standards for wage and hour issues related to employees. The law empowers the Department of Labor to set eligibility standards for overtime pay as well as a series of exemptions for it. On March 7th, 2019, the Department of Labor issued a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking that will change those eligibility standards significantly.
The Fair Labor Standards Act sets national standards for wage and hour issues related to employees. The law empowers the Department of Labor to set eligibility standards for overtime pay as well as a series of exemptions for it. Employees who qualify for overtime under the law receive time-and-a-half pay for hours worked more than forty hours a week. Time-and-a-half pay is a 50% increase to the employee’s “regular rate of pay.”
The increased ability to use biometric data for a variety of purposes has the potential to improve security and privacy in the cyber world significantly. Voice recognition software, fingerprint IDs, facial recognition software are all touted as ways of preventing unauthorized access to computer systems and improving security.
Trucking companies got terrible news from the Supreme Court recently on the employment practices front. The Court invalidated the use of mandatory arbitration and waiver of class action lawsuits in the trucking industry. The ruling came despite numerous rulings in recent years upholding the validity of these practices outside the trucking world and was rendered unanimously.
High cost for Businesses Misclassification
California continues its aggressive moves to protect truck drivers and crack down on misclassification of workers as independent contractors. The California Labor Commission opened 2019 by awarding 24 drivers who work at the Port of Los Angeles and Port of Long Beach almost six million dollars in compensatory damages in two separate. Additionally, the Labor Commission held the manager of the 24 drivers personally liable under California law for the damages. The decision is major sign of California’s ongoing intent to crack down on these issues.
The opioid epidemic, besides its unfathomable human costs, has had large economic costs for businesses and governments who must manage workers compensation costs. Opioid prescriptions in the wake of workplace injuries have been linked to higher workers compensation payouts and longer layoffs before injured employees return to work. Facing the bill for these costs, government, citizens, and private entities have filed a veritable avalanche of lawsuits against pharmaceutical companies for their manufacture and marketing of opioid based painkillers.
