Class action lawsuits now outnumber all other employment-based class actions combined, according to a recent study by ELT, a compliance consulting and training organization that recently surveyed 1,800 human resource specialists and senior level managers.

More than one-third of the participating companies reported facing claims based on wage-and-hour disputes in 2010. As a result, more than half of all those surveyed said they were increasing their efforts (and budgets) to comply with prevailing wage laws based on the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA).

Much of the increased claims activity can be attributed to a newly invigorated Department of Labor (DOL), which has been on an investigator hiring spree to combat what the agency calls "wage theft," and to the easy mark that many companies pose due to insufficient or inefficient bookkeeping, along with sometimes outright ignorance of or disregard for overtime laws.

Employers, don’t get caught up in wage-and-hour hassles, much less legal entanglements. Be sure to comply with FLSA minimum wage and overtime laws. Get your copy today of Personnel Concepts’ FLSA Overtime Rules Compliance Kit and keep both the DOL investigators and employee claims at bay.

On Monday, July 26, 2010, which was the 20th anniversary of the signing of the Americans With Disabilities Act (ADA), the Department of Justice (DOJ) issued new final regulations regarding service animals and the use of Segways (mobility devices). 

Dogs and miniature horses individually trained to mitigate the effects of a disability are now the only animals that qualify as service animals.

The rules also now require entities to allow individuals with disabilities to use Segways wherever pedestrians and wheelchairs are permitted, unless it would fundamentally alter the entity’s services or pose a threat to safety.

At the same time, Justice announced its intentions to regulate the Web, 911 services and movie captioning to make them more accessible to disabled individuals. Though it gave no date for publication, the department issued an Advanced Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (ANPRM) concerning the new regulations. It also opened a public commentary period.

Entities that accept federal funding have long been required to make their Web sites accessible to the handicapped under Section 508 of the 1974 Rehabilitation Act; now the new rules will extend some form of those standards to all Web sites.

New rules implementing the ADA’s Title I employment provisions were also expected from the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) this month but have been delayed.

Personnel Concepts will continue to monitor developments concerning the implementation of the ADA and keep you advised here and on the parent Web site, PersonnelConcepts.com.

Please visit our Web section on Harassment and Discrimination for our array of fine products for implementing the ADA and other such laws.

The Americans With Disabilities Amendments Act (ADAAA) of 2008 was written to restore the original ADA definition of disability that Congress felt had been whittled down by the courts, but in the process the definition has become so broad and all-encompassing that litigants are already testing the legal waters–even before ADAAA final regulations have taken effect.

ADA-based lawsuits jumped 40 percent in the first quarter of 2010 compared to the previous year, and in the second quarter of this year they grew by another 15 percent. In fact, ADA litigation is now the first recourse of former employees, according to recent statistics.

Part of this stems from wording by Congress in the ADAAA that the definition of disability should be construed to embrace "broad coverage." Lawyers were quick to jump on that window of opportunity and test the judicial waters.

Employers, be aware that it’s a much more employee-friendly environment for ADA complaints in wake of the Amendments Act. Fortunately, Personnel Concepts offers a comprehensive guide to help you comply and stay free of legal hassles with its ADA Amendments Act Compliance Kit. Get yours today.

N.B.: The ADAAA final regulations have been in the reviewing hands of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) since the third quarter of 2009. Approval has been consistently delayed from December 2009 to March 2010 to May 2010 to July 2010 to…you get the picture.

On July 5, 1935, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed into law the Wagner Act, which has come down through the ages as the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA), the landmark legislation that codified workers’ rights to organize and collectively bargain with employers.

The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), which is charged with enforcing provisions of the NLRA, is now celebrating the 75th anniversary of the law with a series of events and a special Web commemorative.

Prior to the NLRA, workers were largely at the mercy of their employers when it came to workplace rights and the freedom (or lack thereof) to organize into collective bargaining units.

“Both our country and our world have changed a great deal over the last eight decades, but the values reflected in the National Labor Relations Act – democracy in the workplace and fairness in the economy – are still vitally important,” said NLRB Chairman Wilma Liebman.

In fiscal year 2009 alone, the Agency conducted 1,690 representation elections, received 22,941 charges of unfair labor practices, recovered more than $77 million in back pay and ensured that more than 1,500 wrongfully discharged employees were offered reinstatement to their jobs.

How the NLRA has been enforced through the decades, of course, largely has been a reflection of the administration in charge of the White House. After eight years of Republican ascendancy, during which the NLRB generally favored employers’ over employees’ rights, the Obama administration is now swinging the pendulum in the other direction in favor of workers’ rights.

A good example is the current administration’s issuance of Executive Order 13496, which pretty much reverses a Bush-era order that mandated federal contractors to inform employees–through workplace posters–of their rights not to join unions or pay union dues. E.O. 13496, which is now in full force, mandates just the opposite–that contractors inform their employees of their right to organize and bargain collectively.

Personnel Concepts offers what we’re still calling the Beck Law Poster for federal contractors and subcontractors to inform their employees of Executive Order 13496 and their union rights. If you’re a contractor, get yours today.

First attorneys got themselves exempted. Physicians then jumped in on sought a similar court order, and now accountants have succeeded in getting a judge to free them from the upcoming implementation of the Red Flags Rule, which requires companies to set up procedures to prevent identity theft.

The Red Flags Rule is part of the Fair and Accurate Credit Transactions Act (FACTA), which Congress passed in 2003. The rule requires financial institutions and creditors, including CPAs who bill clients, to develop and implement a written identity theft prevention program to protect customers’ personal information.

The rule was originally intended to take effect on Nov. 1, 2008, but has been delayed three times by the FTC (Federal Trade Commission) and is now scheduled to take effect on June 1, 2010.

The American Institute of CPAs (AICPA) filed suit in November to piggyback on the success of the attorneys’ American Bar Association (ABA) case.

Voila. The U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia in March granted their wish, but its decision is pending the D.C. Circuit Court’s review of an appeal on the ABA case. 

In short, if that court allows the attorney exemption, the accountants will get theirs as well.

For the rest of American business without deep-pocket associations to fend for them, the Red Flags Rule looms large.

You can simplify your preparation and implement of your own proactive Red Flags Rule, get a copy of Personnel Concepts Workplace Identity Theft Prevention Kit.

The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), while legally bound to a fine structure with limits, is seeking to raise its average fine from the $1,000 range to the $3,000 to $4,000 range while awaiting higher fine approval from Congress.

OSHA Director David Michaels announced on April 22 what the agency is calling its Severe Violator Enforcement Program (SVEP), which replaces the current Enhanced Enforcement Program and takes effect in 45 days.

A concurrent OSHA announcement bemoaned the fact that fines have increased only once in 40 years, saying the agency is looking forward to the passage of Protecting America’s Workers Act (PAWA), which will increase the upper fine for serious violations from $7,000 to $12,000 and the top fine for willful violations from $70,000 to $250,000.

In the next 45 days, OSHA is conducting outreach to inform the nation’s businesses of its SVEP initiative and help them prepare.

Those companies wishing to stay fine-free should make sure they are in compliance with all of OSHA’s standards and regulations. Personnel Concepts offers a wide range of products to help you do so. Browse them today in our Web-based collection of OSHA Programs and Kits.

Taking the stage in Chicago at what was once Jane Addams’ Hull House, where FDR Labor Secretary Frances Perkins got started, Obama Labor Secretary Hilda Solis launched a nationwide public awareness program called "We Can Help" on April 1.

"I have a message for those employers who break this nation’s labor laws and prey on vulnerable workers: It ends today," she said in her self-announced role as "the new sheriff in town." 

The new "We Can Help" campaign is essentially a public-relations effort to remind workers—particularly those in construction, hotels/motels, the food service industry and home healthcare—that the Labor Department exists to protect workers, not employers.

"This sheriff believes that workplace enforcement is not only our responsibility, but it is our moral obligation," Solis said, noting that she has increased enforcement staff in all of the Labor Department’s agencies, including 250 new field investigators for the Wage and Hour Division. "If someone is stealing your wages, you can and should call the Department of Labor," she said.

Employers, a good guide for staying in compliance with the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) is to get a copy of Personnel Concepts’ FLSA Overtime Rules Compliance Kit. The kit will help you properly classify–and then pay–your workforce, while keeping the new sheriff and her posse from your doorstep.

As reported here this past November when the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) announced its plans, the federal tax agency has commenced the first phase of its audit of 6,000 firms of all sizes and industries to root out abuses of executive pay, fringe benefits, record-keeping, and misclassification of employees as independent contractors.

The Employment Tax National Research Project (NRP) will start by auditing 2,000 firms this year, and at the end of three years will have completed what appears to be a line-by-line audit of 2007 and 2008 tax returns for the 6,000 companies under its microscope.

The five areas to get the most attention are classification of workers (employees or independent contractors); fringe benefit arrangements; executive compensation arrangements; back-up withholding; and Form 1099 compliance.

Though not directly related to IRS requirements, Personnel Concepts’ Manual of Record-Keeping Requirements will help you stay in compliance with all other federal employment regulations.

Wild Edibles, a Long Island City, N.Y.-based wholesale seafood purveyor that was forced into bankruptcy in July 2009, has settled with a wage-earners’ group that led a successful boycott of the firm’s provisioning by 70 Manhattan restaurants.

The boycott was orchestrated by the nonprofit group Brandworkers, which alleged overtime and wage-and-hour violations by Wild Edibles and ended up securing a a $340,000 settlement for the workers, many of them from the local immigrant population.

“More than anything, we showed that ordinary workers can get organized, take action together and win,” said Raymundo Lara Molina, a former employee of Wild Edibles.

Once a federal judge approves the settlement, Wild Edibles has 45 days to file a bankruptcy restructuring plan.

Though the sum of $340,000 seems tiny compared to many of the nation’s multi-million-dollar settlements, it points up the pitfalls of avoiding one’s obligation as a business owner to pay time-and-a-half for overtime.

Fortunately, Personnel Concepts does provide a handy resource for complying with the federal wage law with its FLSA Fair Pay Overtime Rules Compliance Kit. Get yours today and avoid the fate of Wild Edibles.

Just got my hands on a list of the "Top 10 Bailout Money Recipients" detailing the companies that have received the largest grants from ARRA (American Recovery and Reinvestment Act) funds.

Topping the list is an organization called Savannah River Nuclear Solutions, LLC (SRNS). SRNS operates the Department of Energy’s Savannah River Site in Aiken, South Carolina, which–get this–manages the nation’s nuclear weapons stockpile. (Somehow I don’t think all the nation’s weapons are in Aiken, however.) This group received a cool $1.5 billion in hush money grants ($1,407,839,884 to be precise).

Coming in second but still topping the billion mark at $1,359,715,229 was CH2M Hill Plateau Remediation Company, which is tasked with cleaning up the Central Plateau of the Hanford Site in Washington, reportedly the largest clean-up project in the U.S. (So what are they cleaning up and who made the mess to begin with, pray tell?)

There’s a huge drop-off in third place, with UT-Battelle LLC receiving a paltry $437,675,000 for running the Idaho Cleanup Project (ICP).

Most of the top ten recipients received their funds from the Department of Energy, and most were engaged in clean-up or cover-up operations. Take as an example number seven, Babcock & Wilcox Technical Services Y-12 ($270M). Y-12 operates the National Security Complex in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, where it is engaged in reducing risk from "Cold War legacies" through demolition and disposal. (Demolition and disposal of what, nerve gas or other agents?)

There are probably some interesting tales to be uncovered in this list of the top ten, but I doubt that any media group will bother to do the investigating necessary. They’re too busy angling for their own bailout from Uncle Sam, so no one has to pay off the media to be hush.