Articles by Girish Anand

December 4, 2009

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Happy $40 Million Holiday Present to Mass. Wal-Mart Employees

Nabbed again! Wal-Mart has agreed to fork over $40 million to employees past and present at its Massachusetts outlets after settling a 2001 lawsuit over abuse of time-card data, fudging on overtime and denying employees break time. Employees who worked at those locations from 1995 to the present will receive checks ranging from $400 to $2,500, depending on length of service. This is pretty much...

December 3, 2009

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Jury Is In: Employment Cases On the Rise, Favor Employees

Not only are employment lawsuits on the rise, but so are victories for the employees in both court and the pocketbook. According to Jury Verdict Research, a tracking agency, employees prevailed over employers in 61 percent of all employment trials in 2008 and walked away with a median award of $326,640, up from $204,000 just a year earlier, or a whopping 60 percent rise. Discrimination awards w...

December 2, 2009

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Overtime Rounding Off: Feds Say OK, but Amazon Accused of Cheating

overtime pay

The Department of Labor (DOL) permits companies to round off overtime, "provided that it is used in such a manner that it will not result, over a period of time, in failure to compensate the employees properly for all the time they have actually worked." The New Jersey Department of Labor and Workforce Development disagrees with the DOL and forbids the practice in the Garden State. ...

November 30, 2009

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Cheesecake Factory Forced into Consent Decree Over Sexual Harassment

It's actually just one Cheesecake Factory location in Phoenix that was the subject of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) lawsuit that led to a subsequent consent decree. At that location, the EEOC charged that managers looked the other way while male kitchen staff sexually harassed male service staff, including acts such as dragging them into the refrigerator, grabbing their gen...

November 24, 2009

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GINA May Bar Employers from Social Media Access

Facebook GINA LinkedIn MySpace

Though the Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act (GINA) has already taken effect, the law's regulations are still in a state of flux at the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) and have yet to be finalized. One of the contentious issues that is being weighed internally and through public commentary is the right, or lack thereof, of employers to access employees' or job applic...

November 23, 2009

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Courts Agree Rehab Act Covers Contractors

ADA ADAAA Rehabilitation Act

The Ninth Circuit Court recently ruled that, unlike the Americans With Disabilities Act (ADA) which covers only those who are in an employee-employer relationship, the Rehabilitation Act is worded more loosely to cover any "otherwise qualified individual." Thus in reviewing a lawsuit against a hospital, the court ruled in favor of an independent contractor who claimed he had been deni...

November 20, 2009

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One in Four Believes a Co-Worker Capable of Violence

In the wake of the workplace murder of Yale student Annie Le and other tales of co-worker-initiated mass violence such as that at Ft. Hood, one in every four Americans believes a co-worker he or she knows is capable of violence, according to a new Rasmussen poll. According to the latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey, 26 percent of employed adults said they seriously thought that ...

November 18, 2009

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DOL Pushes for Mandated Seven Paid Sick Days Minimum

Using the H1N1 pandemic as a selling point for mandating sick leave at work, Department of Labor spokespersons have been testifying in the Senate this week in support of the Healthy Families Act. The proposed bill would require employers to let employees accrue one hour of paid sick leave for every 30 hours worked, capped at 56 hours, or seven days. The bill would also allow employers (naturall...

November 17, 2009

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GAO Faults OSHA for Its Injury-Illness Audits

The Government Accountability Office (GAO) has issued a report faulting the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) for its handling of the injury-illness reports it collects each year from the nation's businesses. Each year OSHA audits about 250 of the injury-illness reports it receives from approximately 130,000 high-hazard work sites in the United States. The GAO audit of these ...

November 13, 2009

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Bills Introduced to Extend COBRA Subsidy, Length

COBRA subsidy

Two bills in the House of Representatives aim to extend the eligibility date for subsidies of COBRA health coverage through June 31, 2010. Currently, those involuntarily discharged from their jobs are eligible for a 65-percent subsidy of COBRA health care only if they are terminated by Dec. 31, 2009. Both HR 3930 and HR 3966 embrace the new cut-off date but approach matters a bit diff...

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Girish Anand

Recent Articles

Practical articles on HR, Safety, compliance, and people operations—written for real businesses, not legal textbooks.

U.S. Department of Labor Officially Restores Prior Overtime Exemption Rules

On May 14th, 2026, the Wage and Hour Division (WHD) of the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) announced it has officially rescinded the 2024 overtime exemption rules. Specifically, the WHD published a technical amendment to restore previous 2019 regulations that dictated overtime exemptions for...

NLRB General Counsel Takes Action to Tackle Current Case Backlog

On May 6th, the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) and NLRB General Counsel Crystal Stowe Carey announced the bulk transfer of thousands of labor practice cases. Specifically, this action fulfills an initiative signed by the NLRB General Counsel earlier this year. Overall, the initiative...

Privacy Agency Invites Comments from Businesses on the CCPA’s Usage of Personal Data

Recently, the California Privacy Protection Agency (CPPA) issued a call for comments on the current state of personal data collection under the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA). Specifically, the invitation to deliver remarks was issued on April 20th, 2026. The information provided by the...

DOL Proposes New Joint Employer Rule To Unify Standards Under Federal Labor Laws

In April 2026, the U.S. Department of Labor issued a proposed rule to establish a single, clear standard for determining when joint-employer status applies under three major federal laws: the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA), and the Migrant and Seasonal...

DOL Updates Enforcement Approach for Employee Benefit Plans: What Employers Should Know

The U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) recently announced a significant change in its enforcement of employee benefit plan rules. The DOL will now focus more closely on serious violations that harm workers and retirees, meaning compliant employers may face less scrutiny under the updated approach.

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Articles by Girish Anand