Expert Compliance Insights & Tips for Businesses

February 5, 2013

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FMLA Celebrates Its 20th Anniversary Today

The Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) celebrates its 20th anniversary today, Feb. 5, 2013. The FMLA provides up to 12 weeks of unpaid leave for employees with health concerns affecting either themselves or those they care for and up to 26 weeks of leave to care for related service members when the employer has a workforce of 50 or more. "The Family and Medical Leave Act codified a simple...

February 4, 2013

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SBA Launches Affordable Care Act Website

The Small Business Administration (SBA) has launched a new Web page and blog dedicated to educating small business owners about the Affordable Care Act (ACA). The new tools will serve as a gateway for small business owners connecting them with information provided by SBA’s federal partners responsible for implementing the law, including the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). &...

February 2, 2013

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EEOC Recovers $365M in Workplace Discrimination Cases in FY 2012

The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) has announced that it received 99,412 private sector workplace discrimination charges during fiscal year 2012, down slightly from the previous year. The year-end data also show that retaliation (37,836), race (33,512) and sex discrimination (30,356), which includes allegations of sexual harassment and pregnancy were, respectively, the most freq...

February 1, 2013

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City of San Jose Raises Minimum Wage to $10 an Hour

San Jose, Calif., is poised to join the ranks of high-minimum-wages cities like San Francisco and Santa Fe with a new rate of $10 per hour set to take effect. The Minimum Wage Ordinance was passed by City of San José voters on Nov. 6, 2012. It requires employers to pay their employees a minimum wage of $10 per hour for work performed within the City of San José and requires t...

January 28, 2013

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HHS Delays Employer Requirement to Provide Health Insurance Exchange Notices

Originally set as March 1 this year, the deadline for all employers to inform their workforces about how the new health insurance exchanges will operate has been delayed, with no new date offered. The Health and Human Services (HHS) Department fact sheet explaining the delay indicates it would be "will coordinate[d] with the open enrollment period for Exchanges" sometime thi...

January 25, 2013

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Appeals Court Invalidates Obama's Three 'Recess' NLRB Appointments

Three appointments to the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) by President Obama using his "recess appointment" authority are unconstitutional, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia ruled today. The three-justice panel ruled that the Senate is in recess only between one Congressional session and the next, which was not the case when Obama made his appointments on Ja...

January 25, 2013

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DOL Issues Guidance on FMLA Leave for Adult Children

The Department of Labor (DOL) this month released a new fact sheet on Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) leave to care for an adult child, stepchild, adopted child, legal ward or someone for whom the employee stands in loco parentis. In a nutshell, here is the answer: In general, an employee may not take FMLA leave to care for a son or daughter who is 18 years of age or older. However, an em...

January 24, 2013

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OSHA Log 300 Injury and Illness Report Must Be Posted by Feb. 1

The OSHA Log 300 "Summary of Work-Related Injuries and Illnesses" must be posted by all businesses by Feb. 1, 2013, and kept up until April 30, 2013. The posting must be certified by the owner or highest-ranking official at the site, and each year's Log 300 must be retained on file for five years following the end of the calendar year it covers. Struggling with OSHA compliance in ...

January 23, 2013

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EEOC Seeks Public Commentary on Its Strategic Plan

The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) has announced that it is seeking public comments regarding its priorities in its federal sector program as part of the agency's recently approved Strategic Enforcement Plan (SEP) for Fiscal Years 2013-2016. The SEP mandated that the agency "determine how enforcement priorities for the federal sector will be reflected in the federal sec...

January 21, 2013

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Health Insurance Exchanges Relabeled as 'Marketplaces'

In the past week, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has begun referring to the health insurance exchanges mandated by the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) as "marketplaces." Fans of PPACA say the renaming was done to ease the public's understanding of what the exchanges are for (to buy health insurance), while foes, including many Republican gover...

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