Expert Compliance Insights & Tips for Businesses

January 17, 2009
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Are New Minimum Wages Fueling Layoffs?

layoffs minimum wage unemployment
Many have argued that minimum wage laws price certain people out of the job market skill-wise and also lead to layoffs as small businesses cope with their finances and the added burden of higher wages. In this light, it's notable that fully 40 percent of the 693,000 who lost their jobs in the latest ADP report (November-December 2008) were from small businesses. Arthur Bruzzone, a former Cali...
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January 17, 2009
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AHRQ: The (Scary) Little Agency That Thinks It Can

AHRQ health care rationing
Can do the impossible, that is, which to prescribe which medicines and medical procedures are both most efficacious and most cost-effective. So far, I can find little proof of AHRQ's accomplishing anything near this goal on the site of the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality. AHRQ is in the news since it just got a whole new set of fangs in the Obama stimulus plan (aka the Tom Daschle s...
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January 17, 2009
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Unions, Schmunions--What, Me Worry?

EFCA unions
For all the celestial disturbance over the proposed Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA), you wouldn't know it from a poll I just discovered at the Manpower Employment Blawg. The blog posted this question: What is the #1 most frightening employment law issue you’re facing right now? And got these results: 1. Terminations (26%) 2. Discrimination (13%) 3. Medical issues (10%) 4. Haras...
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January 15, 2009
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Egads, Our Medical Records Are an Open Book!

medical records Personal Health Information PHI
Well, not quite. They can't legally be published online or in a print publication, but they can be shared with too many groups without our consent. Most people have never heard of HIPAA, the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996, but that law is the source of what privacy rights we have and don't have. HIPAA directed the federal government to establish privacy rules for p...
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January 14, 2009
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COBRA Is Aptly Named; It Bites Its Victims

COBRA health insurance
The Consolidated Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1985, now known as COBRA, contains a clause allowing employees to keep their company's health insurance for up to 18 months after they leave their jobs, provided they pay the premiums. With people being laid off right and left and the ranks of the unemployed rapidly swelling, many Americans are getting their first introduction to COBRA--and...
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January 13, 2009
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Lilly Ledbetter Triumps Over (In) Congress

Lilly Ledbetter Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act
A week ago I wrote that the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act was being put on fast track for passage by the 111th Congress. With a snap of their fingers (actually, pushing their "yes" buttons), members of Congress did just that and sent Lilly over to the Senate, where Harry Reid and other leaders are confident of having the necessary votes to choke off a Republican filibuster. (To recount, the Fai...
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January 13, 2009
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Businesses Fear His Very Sight

ADA Americans With Disabilities Act Tom Mundy
Tom Mundy earns a princely income in California by going around to various business establishments with an eye to finding violations of the ADA (Americans With Disabilities Act), usually related to accessibility issues. In one instance, the condiments counter at a fast food joint was one inch too high to be properly accessible. So what did Mundy, who himself is disabled and in a wheelchair, do?...
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January 13, 2009
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New Perspectives on the Unemployed

unemployed unemployment
I ran across a blog posting today by someone named Chef Sheila, but it appears as if the article itself was done by someone else judging by the first paragraph that praises "this journalist's informative piece" (unless she's vainly referring to and complimenting herself). Be that as it may, the piece is called "Meltdown 101: Unemployment by the numbers," and it starts off by factoring in categ...
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January 12, 2009
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Republic Windows and Doors Offers WARN Test Case

Republic Windows and Doors severance pay WARN Act
The WARN Act (Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act) specifies that 60 days' notice must be given in firms with more than 100 full-time employees when large-scale layoffs are going to take place. The act kicks in when 50 employees at one location are laid off within a 30-day period, or when 33 percent of the workfoce is laid off, or when 500 employees are laid off (regardless of the...
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January 9, 2009
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Dems Launch Effort Toward Pay Parity

Democrats Lilly Ledbetter Nancy Pelosi pay parity
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D.-Calif., indicated today that two labor bills are being put on the fast track for passage. Both deal with ensuring women are paid the same as men for doing the same jobs, all other factors being equal. The Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act is named for a litigant who lost her case for fair pay in 2007. The Supreme Court, though agreeing Ms. Ledbetter was probably discr...
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