According to a new survey by health insurance company HealthPartners, health care costs are the biggest obstacle to business expansion for Minnesota businesses.
Almost two-thirds of companies said health costs jumped 10 percent or more in the past two years, with a quarter reporting costs increasing by more than 20 percent
Many employers blame employee lifestyles for [...]
Here is an interesting article from Law360 about how lawyers are using Facebook in a variety of different cases. Nothing earth-shatteringly new, but a good reminder for all involved about the implications of social media. In business litigation like non-compete cases, Linkedin may be an even better source of evidence.
This week’s New York Times Magazine contains its annual Year in Ideas, which always makes for fascinating reading.
Two of the articles touched on employment law topics. The first, called “The Myth of the Deficient Older Worker”, describes a study by three economists who pitted “seniors” (those over 50) against “juniors” (those under 30) in three decision-making [...]
Two interesting stories on privacy issues this morning.
First, Acorn is having even more problems because a republican activist did a little dumpster diving behind its offices in San Diego and came out with a bunch of documents containing social security and driver’s license numbers of its members and job applicants. Ouch!
Second, Sen. Patrick Leahy is [...]
Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) announced yesterday that it is expanding a program for auditing companies’ hiring practices, and that it notified 1,000 companies this week that they would have to undergo such a review.
It appears that the audits will primarily affect private companies with some connection to public safety and national security, such as [...]
The Workplace Prof Blog has picked up on a new report from The Center for Economic and Policy Research about demographic changes in the labor movement in the last 25 years. According to the report:
Women now make up over 45 percent of unionized workers, up from just 35 percent in 1983.
Latinos are the fastest growing [...]
What I find most interesting in this article about stopping workplace gossip is not the company’s use of an “agreement to values” which prohibits back-stabbing, gossiping and the like; its the use of color-coded name plates to advise what communication style a particular employee prefers. Red is for those who are direct and to the [...]
Minneapolis-based UnitedHealth Group is taking some heat for providing form letters to its 75,000 U.S. employees opposing aspects of the health care reform bill working its way through Congress. The company also urged employees to write letters to local newspapers and then share those letters with the company’s lobbying arm.
One of the form letters provided by UHG makes [...]
A federal jury on Tuesday awarded more than $6.2 million in an age discrimination suit brought by two scientists who said they were fired from their jobs at a Pennsylvania chemical manufacturing company when the company targeted only older workers in layoffs in 2005. The case highlights the importance of statistically analyzing the effects of [...]
